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DR,  GRENFELUS  PARISH 


THE        fr  O   R  K  S        Of 

NORMAN     DUNCAN 

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A    DOCTOR  ...  THE    PROPHET    AND    CHAMPION    OF    A    PEOPLE" 


Dr,  GrenfeWs  Parish 

The  Deep   Sea  Fishermen 


By 

NORMAN    DUNCAN 

Author  of 
"  Doctor  Luke  of  the  Labrador" 


17^  ^^ 


New  Tork         Chicago         Toronto 

Fleming  H.   Revell  Company 

Ltndon    and    Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1905,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenu« 
Chicago:  123  North  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  27  Richmond  Street,  W 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:     100    Princes    Street 


F 


TO 

TEB  OBEW  OF  TEE  "  8TEATEC0NA  " 

Henry  Bartlett,  Skipper 

Munden  Clark,  Second  Sand 

William  Percy,  First  Engineer 

John  Scott,  Second  Engineer 

Archie  Butler,  Hospital  Hand 

James  Hiscock,  Cooh 

Alec  Sims,  Ship' a  Boy 


TO    THE    READER 

THIS  book  pretends  to  no  literary 
excellence ;  it  has  a  far  better  rea- 
son for  existence — a  larger  justifica- 
tion. Its  purpose  is  to  spread  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  work  of  Dr.  "Wilfred  T.  Gren- 
fell,  of  the  Royal  National  Mission  to  Deep- 
Sea  Fishermen,  at  work  on  the  coasts  of  New- 
foundland and  Labrador;  and  to  describe 
the  character  and  condition  of  the  folk  whom 
he  seeks  to  help.  The  man  and  the  mission 
are  worthy  of  sympathetic  interest ;  worthy, 
too,  of  unqualified  approbation,  of  support 
of  every  sort.  Dr.  Grenf ell  is  indefatigable, 
devoted,  heroic ;  he  is  more  and  even  better 
than  that — he  is  a  sane  and  efficient  worker. 
Frankly,  the  author  believes  that  the  reader 
would  do  a  good  deed  by  contributing  to 
the  maintenance  and  development  of  the 
doctor's  beneficent  undertakings;  and  re> 


r 


TO  THE  EEADEE 

grets  that  the  man  and  his  work  are  pre- 
sented in  this  inadequate  way  and  by  so 
incapable  a  hand.  The  author  is  under  ob- 
ligation to  the  editors  of  Harper's  Magazine, 
of  The  World's  Work,  and  of  Outing  for 
permission  to  reprint  the  contributed  papers 
which,  in  some  part,  go  to  make  up  the  vol- 
ume. He  wishes  also  to  protest  that  Dr. 
Grenfell  is  not  the  hero  of  a  certain  work  of 
fiction  dealing  with  life  on  the  Labrador 
coast.  Some  unhappy  misunderstanding 
has  arisen  on  this  point.  The  author  wishes 
to  make  it  plain  that  "  Doctor  Luke  "  was 
not  drawn  from  Dr.  Grenfell. 

N.  D. 

Collegt  Campus, 

Washington,  Pennsylvania,  January  2^,  igoS' 


CONTENTS 


I. 

The  Doctor    .        .        .        . 

II 

II. 

A  Round  of  Bleak  Coasts 

i8 

III. 

Ships  in  Peril  .        .        .        , 

26 

IV. 

Desperate  Need 

37 

V. 

A  Helping  Hand      . 

.      48 

VI. 

Faith  and  Duty 

•      55 

VII. 

The  Liveyere  . 

.      67 

VIII. 

With  the  Fleet 

83 

IX. 

On  the  French  Shore     . 

,     103 

X. 

Some  Outport  Folk 

.     no 

XI. 

Winter  Practice 

.     132 

XII. 

The  Champion 

146 

LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing  page 
"  A  Doctor  ...  the  Prophet  tnd  Champion 

of «  People" Title 

20 
30 
44 


«♦  It  is  an  Evil  Coast "  . 

**  Bound  North  "  .... 

••A  Turf  Hut" 

"Set  Sail  from  Great  Yarmouth  Harbour  for 

Labrador  "   . 
**  Appeared   with   a   Little   Steam-launch,   the 

Princess  May  "      . 
••  The  Hospital  Ship,  Strathcona  "  . 
"  The  Labrador  *  Liveyere ' " 
"  At  Indian  Harbour  "  ... 

'•  Set  the  Traps  m  the  Open  Sea  " 
"  The  Bully-boat  Becomes  a  Home  " 
"  The  Whitewashed  Cottages  on  the  Hills " 

"ToU" 

•*  The  Hospital  at  Battle  Harbour  " 

**  The  Doctor  on  a  Winter's  Journey  "     . 


50 

55 

65 

73 
86 

93 

lOI 

III 

I2Z 
133 
144 


••  A  Crew  Quite  Capable  of  Taking  You  bto  It "     1 50 


Dr.  GrenfeWs  Parish 


THE  DOCTOR 

DOCTOR  WILFRED  T.  GREN- 
FELL  is  the  young  Englishman 
who,  for  the  love  of  God,  practices 
medicine  on  the  coasts  of  Newfoundland  and 
Labrador.  Other  men  have  been  moved 
to  heroic  deeds  by  the  same  high  motive, 
but  the  professional  round,  I  fancy,  is  quite 
out  of  the  common ;  indeed,  it  may  be  that 
in  aU  the  world  there  is  not  another  of  the 
sort.  It  extends  from  Oape  John  of  New- 
foundland around  Oape  Norman  and  into 
the  Strait  of  Belle  Isle,  and  from  Ungava 
Bay  and  Cape  Chidley  of  the  Labrador  south- 
ward far  into  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence — 
two  thousand  miles  of  bitterly  inhospitable 
shore :  which  a  man  in  haste  must  sail  with 
his  life  in  his  hands.  The  folk  are  for  the 
U 


12        BR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

most  part  isolated  and  desperately  wretched 
— the  shore  fishermen  of  the  remoter  New- 
foundland coasts,  the  Labrador  "  liveyeres," 
the  Indians  of  the  forbidding  interior,  the  Es- 
quimaux of  the  far  north.  It  is  to  such  as 
these  that  the  man  gives  devoted  and  heroic 
service — not  for  gain;  there  is  no  gain  to 
be  got  in  those  impoverished  places :  merely 
for  the  love  of  God. 

I  once  went  ashore  in  a  little  harbour  of 
the  northeast  coast  of  Newfoundland.  It 
was  a  place  most  unimportant — and  it  was 
just  beyond  the  doctor's  round.  The  sea 
sullenly  confronted  it,  hills  overhung  it,  and 
a  scrawny  wilderness  flanked  the  hills ;  the 
ten  white  cottages  of  the  place  gripped  the 
dripping  rocks  as  for  dear  life.  And  down 
the  path  there  came  an  old  fisherman  to 
meet  the  stranger. 

"  Good-even,  zur,"  said  he. 

"  Good-evening." 

He  waited  for  a  long  time.  Then,  "Be 
you  a  doctor,  zur  ?  "  he  asked. 


THE  DOCTOR  13 

"No,  sir." 

"  Noa  ?  Isn't  you  ?  Now,  I  was  thinkin' 
maybe  you  might  be.  But  you  isn't,  you 
says?" 

"  Sorry — but,  no ;  really,  I'm  not.'* 

"  Well,  zur,"  he  persisted, "  I  was  thinkin' 
you  might  be,  when  I  seed  you  comin' 
ashore.  They  is  a  doctor  on  this  coast," 
he  added,  "  but  he's  sixty  mile  along  shore. 
'Tis  a  wonderful  expense  t'  have  un  up. 
This  here  harbour  isn't  able.  An'  you  isn't 
a  doctor,  you  says  ?    Is  you  sure,  zur  ?  " 

There  was  unhappily  no  doubt  about  it. 

"  I  was  thinkin'  you  might  be,"  he  went 
on,  wistfully,  "  when  I  seed  you  comin' 
ashore.  But  perhaps  you  might  know 
something  about  doctorin'  ?    Noa  ?  " 

"Nothing." 

"I  was  thinkin',  now,  that  you  might. 
'Tis  my  little  girl  that's  sick.  Sure,  none 
of  us  knows  what's  the  matter  with  she. 
Woan't  you  come  up  an'  see  she,  zur  ?  Per- 
haps you  might  do  something — though  you 
isn't — a  doctor." 


14        DE.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

The  little  girl  was  lying  on  the  floor— on 
a  ragged  quilt,  in  a  corner.  She  was  a  fair 
child — a  little  maid  of  seven.  Her  eyes 
were  deep  blue,  wide,  and  fringed  with 
long,  heavy  lashes.  Her  hair  was  flaxen, 
abundant,  all  tangled  and  curly.  Indeed, 
she  was  a  winsome  little  thing ! 

"  I'm  thinkin'  she'll  be  dyin'  soon,"  said 
the  mother.  "  Sure,  she's  wonderful  swelled 
in  the  legs.  We  been  waitin'  for  a  doctor 
t'  come,  an'  we  kind  o'  thought  you  was 
one." 

"  How  long  have  you  waited  ?  " 

"'Twas  in  April  she  was  took.  She've 
been  lyin'  there  ever  since.  'Tis  near  Au- 
gust, now,  I'm  thinkin'." 

"  They  was  a  doctor  here  two  year  ago," 
said  the  man.  "  He  come  by  chance,"  he 
added,  "  like  you." 

"  Think  they'll  be  one  comin'  soon  ?  "  the 
woman  asked. 

I  took  the  little  girl's  hand.  It  was  dry 
and  hot.  She  did  not  smile — nor  was  she 
afraid.    Her  fingers  closed  upon  the  hand 


THE  DOCTOR  U 

she  held.  She  was  a  blue-eyed,  winsome 
little  maid;  but  pain  had  driven  all  the 
sweet  roguery  out  of  her  face. 

"  Does  you  think  she'll  die,  zur  ?  "  asked 
the  woman,  anxiously. 

I  did  not  know. 

"  Sure,  zur,"  said  the  man,  trying  to  smile, 
"'tis  wonderful  queer,  but  I  av/re  thought 
you  was  a  doctor,  when  I  seed  you  comin' 
ashore." 

"But  you  isn't?"  the  woman  pursued, 
still  hopefully.  "  Is  you  sure  you  couldn't  do 
nothin'  ?  Is  you  noa  kind  of  a  doctor,  at  all  ? 
"We  doan't — we  doan't — want  she  t'  die  I " 

In  the  silence — so  long  and  deep  a  silence 
— melancholy  shadows  crept  in  from  the 
desolation  without. 

"  I  wisht  you  was  a  doctor,"  said  the  man. 
"  I — wisht — you — was  !  " 

He  was  crying. 

"  They  need,"  thought  I,  "  a  mission-doc- 
tor in  these  parts." 

And  the  next  day — in  the  harbour  beyond 
— I  first  heard  of  Grenfell.    In  that  place 


16        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

they  said  they  would  send  him  to  the  little 
maid  who  lay  dying ;  they  assured  me,  in- 
deed, that  he  would  make  haste,  when  he  came 
that  way:  which  would  be,  perhaps,  they 
thought,  in  "  'long  about  a  month. "  Whether 
or  not  the  doctor  succoured  the  child  I  do  not 
know ;  but  I  have  never  forgotten  this  first 
impression  of  his  work — the  conviction  that 
it  was  a  good  work  for  a  man  to  be  about. 

Subsequently  I  learned  that  Dr.  Grenfell 
was  the  superintendent  of  the  Newfoundland 
and  Labrador  activities  of  the  Royal  Na- 
tional Mission  to  Deep  Sea  Fishermen,  an 
English  organization,  with  a  religious  and 
medical  work  already  well-established  on 
the  North  Sea,  and  a  medical  mission  then 
in  process  of  development  on  the  North  At- 
lantic coast.  Two  years  later  he  discovered 
himself  to  be  a  robust,  hearty  Saxon,  strong, 
indefatigable,  devoted,  jolly;  a  doctor,  a 
parson  by  times,  something  of  a  sportsman 
when  occasion  permitted,  a  master-mariner, 
a  magistrate,  the  director  of  certain  commer- 


THE  DOCTOR  17 

cial  enterprises  designed  to  "  help  the  folk 
help  themselves" — the  prophet  and  cham- 
pion, indeed,  of  a  people :  and  a  man  very 
much  in  love  with  life. 


n 

A  ROUND  of  BLEAK  COASTS 

THE  coast  of  Labrador,  which,  in 
number  of  miles,  forms  the  larger 
half  of  the  doctor's  round,  is  for- 
bidding, indeed — naked,  rugged,  desolate, 
lying  sombre  in  a  mist.  It  is  of  weather- 
worn gray  rock,  broken  at  intervals  by  long 
ribs  of  black.  In  part  it  is  low  and  ragged, 
slowly  rising,  by  way  of  bare  slopes  and 
starved  forest,  to  broken  mountain  ranges, 
which  He  blue  and  bold  in  the  inland  waste. 
Elsewhere  it  rears  from  the  edge  of  the  sea 
in  stupendous  cliffs  and  lofty,  rugged  hills. 
There  is  no  inviting  stretch  of  shore  the 
length  of  it — ^no  sandy  beach,  no  line  of 
shingle,  no  grassy  bank ;  the  sea  washes  a 
thousand  miles  of  jagged  rock.  Were  it  not 
for  the  harbours — innumerable  and  snugly 
sheltered  from  the  winds  and  ground  swell 
18 


A  ROUND  OF  BLEAK  COASTS    19 

of  the  open — there  would  be  no  navigating 
the  waters  of  that  region.  The  Strait  Shore 
is  buoyed,  lighted,  minutely  charted.  The 
reefs  and  currents  and  tickles  ^  and  harbours 
are  all  known.  A  northeast  gale,  to  be  sure, 
raises  a  commotion,  and  fog  and  drift-ice 
add  something  to  the  chance  of  disaster; 
but,  as  they  say,  from  one  peril  there  are 
two  ways  of  escape  to  three  sheltered  places. 
To  the  north,  however,  where  the  doctor 
makes  his  way,  the  coast  is  best  sailed  on 
the  plan  of  the  skipper  of  the  old  Twelve 
Brothers. 

"You  don't  cotch  me  meddlin'  with  no 
land ! "  said  he. 

Paat  the  Dead  Islands,  Snug  Harbour, 
Domino  Run,  Devil's  Lookout  and  the 
Quaker's  Hat — beyond  Johnny  Paul's  Rock 
and  the  Wolves,  Sandwich  Bay,  Tumble- 
down Dick,  Indian  Harbour,  and  the  White 
Cockade— past  Cape  Harrigan,  the  Farm- 
yard Islands  and  the  Hen  and  Chickens — 

'  A  "  tiokle  "  is  a  narrow  passage  to  a  harbour  or  be- 
tween two  ialaoda. 


20        DE.  GKENFELL'S  PAKI8H 

far  north  to  the  great,  craggy  hills  and 
strange  peoples  of  Kikkertadsoak,  Sooralik, 
Tunnulusoak,  Nain,  Okak,  and,  at  last, 
to  Cape  Chidley  itself — northward,  every 
crooked  mile  of  the  way,  bold  headlands, 
low  outlying  islands,  sunken  reefs,  tides, 
fogs,  great  winds  and  snow  make  hard  sail- 
ing of  it.  It  is  an  evil  coast,  ill-charted 
where  charted  at  all;  some  part  of  the 
present-day  map  is  based  upon  the  guess- 
work of  the  eighteenth  century  navigators. 
The  doctor,  like  the  skippers  of  the  fishing- 
craft,  must  sometimes  sail  by  guess  and 
hearsay,  by  recollection  and  old  rhymes. 

The  gusts  and  great  waves  of  open  water 
—of  the  free,  wide  sea,  I  mean,  over  which 
a  ship  may  safely  drive  while  the  weather 
exhausts  its  evil  mood — are  menace  enough 
for  the  stoutest  heart.  But  the  Labrador 
voyage  is  inshore — a  winding  course  among 
the  islands,  or  a  straight  one  from  headland 
to  headland,  of  a  coast  off  which  reefs  lie 
thick :  low-lying,  jagged  ledges,  washed  by 


A  ROUND  OF  BLEAK  COASTS    21 

the  sea  in  heavy  weather ;  barren  hills, 
rising  abruptly — and  all  isolated — from  safe 
water;  sunken  rocks,  disclosed,  upon  ap- 
proach, only  by  the  green  swirl  above  them. 
They  are  countless — scattered  everywhere, 
hidden  and  disclosed.  They  lie  in  ihe 
mouths  of  harbours,  they  lie  close  to  the 
coast,  they  lie  offshore;  they  run  twenty 
miles  out  to  sea.  Here  is  no  plain  sailing  ; 
the  skipper  must  be  sure  of  the  way — or 
choose  it  gingerly :  else  the  hidden  rock 
will  inevitably  "  pick  him  up." 
Recently  the  doctor  was  "  picked  up." 
"  Oh,  yes,"  says  he,  with  interest.  "  An 
uncharted  rock.  It  took  two  of  the  three 
blades  of  the  propeller.  But,  really,  you'd 
be  surprised  to  know  how  well  the  ship  got 
along  with  one !  " 

To  know  the  submerged  rocks  of  one 
harbour  and  the  neighbouring  coast,  how- 
ever evil  the  place,  is  small  accomplishment. 
The  Newfoundland  lad  of  seven  years  would 
ooont  himself  his  father's  shame  if  he  failed 


22        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

in  so  little.  High  tide  and  low  tide,  quiet 
sea  and  heavy  swell,  he  will  know  where  he 
can  take  the  punt — the  depth  of  water,  to 
an  inch,  which  overlies  the  danger  spots. 
But  here  are  a  hundred  harbours — a  thou- 
sand miles  of  coast — with  reefs  and  islands 
scattered  like  dust  the  length  of  it.  The 
man  who  sails  the  Labrador  must  know 
it  all  like  his  own  back  yard — not  in 
sunny  weather  alone,  but  in  the  night,  when 
the  headlands  are  like  black  clouds  ahead, 
and  in  the  mist,  when  the  noise  of  break- 
ers tells  him  all  that  he  may  know  of  his 
whereabouts.  A  flash  of  white  in  the  gray 
distance,  a  thud  and  swish  from  a  hidden 
place :  the  one  is  his  beacon,  the  other  his 
fog-horn.  It  is  thus,  often,  that  the  doctor 
gets  along. 

You  may  chart  rocks,  and  beware  of 
them ;  but — it  is  a  proverb  on  the  coast — 
"  there's  no  chart  for  icebergs."  The  Labra- 
dor current  is  charged  with  them — hard, 
dead- white  glacier  ice  from   the  Arctic: 


A  ROUND  OF  BLEAK  COASTS    23 

massive  bergs,  innumerable,  all  the  while 
shifting  with  tide  and  current  and  wind. 
What  with  floes  and  bergs — vast  fields  of 
drift-ice — the  way  north  in  the  spring  is 
most  perilous.  The  same  bergs — widely 
scattered,  diminished  in  number,  dwarfed 
by  the  milder  climate — give  the  transatlantic 
passenger  evil  dreams :  somewhere  in  the 
night,  somewhere  in  the  mist,  thinks  he,  they 
may  lie ;  and  he  shudders.  The  skipper  of 
the  Labrador  craft  knows  that  they  lie  thick 
around  him :  there  is  no  surmise ;  when  the 
night  fell,  when  the  fog  closed  in,  there  were 
a  hundred  to  be  counted  from  the  masthead. 

Violent  winds  are  always  to  be  feared — 
swift,  overwhelming  hurricanes  :  winds  that 
catch  the  unwary.  They  are  not  frequent ; 
but  they  do  blow — will  again  blow,  no  man 
can  tell  when.  In  such  a  gale,  forty  vessels 
were  driven  on  a  lee  shore ;  in  another, 
eighty  were  wrecked  overnight — two  thou- 
sand fishermen  cast  away,  the  coast  littered 
with  splinters  of  ships — and,  once  (it  is  bat 


24        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

an  incident),  a  schooner  was  torn  from  her 
anchors  and  flung  on  the  rocks  forty  feet 
above  the  high-water  mark.  These  are  ex- 
ceptional storms ;  the  common  Labrador 
gale  is  not  so  violent,  but  evil  enough  in  its 
own  way.  It  is  a  northeaster,  of  which  the 
barometer  more  often  than  not  gives  fair 
warning ;  day  after  day  it  blows,  cold,  wet, 
foggy,  dispiriting,  increasing  in  violence, 
subsiding,  returning  again,  until  courage 
and  strength  are  both  worn  out. 

Reefs,  drift-ice,  wind  and  sea — and  over 
all  the  fog :  thick,  wide-spread,  persistent, 
swift  in  coming,  mysterious  in  movement ; 
it  compounds  the  dangers.  It  blinds  men — 
they  curse  it,  while  they  grope  along:  a 
desperate  business,  indeed,  thus  to  run  by 
guess  where  positive  knowledge  of  the  way 
merely  mitigates  the  peril.  There  are  days 
when  the  fog  lies  like  a  thick  blanket  on  the 
face  of  the  sea,  hiding  the  head-sails  from 
the  man  at  the  wheel ;  it  is  night  on  deck, 
and  broad  day — with  the  sun  in  a  blue  sky 


A  EOUND  OF  BLEAK  COASTS    25 

— at  the  masthead ;  the  schooners  are  some- 
times steered  by  a  man  aloft.  The  Always 
Loaded^  sixty  tons  and  bound  home  with  a 
cargo  that  did  honour  to  her  name,  struck 
one  of  the  outlying  islands  so  suddenly,  so 
violently,  that  the  lookout  in  the  bow,  who 
had  been  peering  into  the  mist,  was  pitched 
headlong  into  the  surf.  The  Daughter,  run- 
ning blind  with  a  fair,  light  wind — she  had 
been  lost  for  a  day — ran  full  tilt  into  a  cliff ; 
the  men  ran  forward  from  the  soggy  gloom 
of  the  after-deck  into — bright  sunshine  at 
the  bow  1    It  is  the  fog  that  wrecks  ships. 

"  Oh,  I  runned  her  ashore,"  says  the  cast- 
away skipper.  "  Thick  ?  Why,  sv^e^  'twas 
thick ! " 

So  the  men  who  sail  that  coast  hate  fog, 
fear  it,  avoid  it  when  they  can,  which  is  sel- 
dom ;  they  are  not  afraid  of  wind  and  sea, 
but  there  are  times  when  they  shake  in  their 
sea-boots,  if  the  black  fog  catches  them  out 
of  harbour. 


m 

SHIPS  in  PERIL 

IT  is  to  be  remarked  that  a  wreck  on  the 
Labrador  coast  excites  no  wide  surprise. 
Never  a  season  passes  but  some  craft 
are  cast  away.  But  that  is  merely  the  for- 
tune of  sailing  those  waters — a  fortune 
which  the  mission-doctor  accepts  with  a 
glad  heart :  it  provides  him  with  an  inter- 
esting succession  of  adventures ;  life  is  not 
tame.  »'Most  men — I  hesitate  to  say  all — 
have  been  wrecked  ;  every  man,  woman,  and 
child  who  has  sailed  the  Labrador  has  nar- 
rowly escaped,  at  least.  And  the  fashion 
of  that  escape  is  sometimes  almost  incredi- 
ble. 

The  schooner  AlVs  Well  (which  is  a  ficti- 
tious name)  was  helpless  in  the  wind  and  sea 
and  whirling  snow  of  a  great  blizzard.     At 
dusk  she  was  driven  inshore — no  man  knew 
26 


SHIPS  IN  PERIL  St 

where.  Strange  cliffs  loomed  in  the  snow 
ahead ;  breakers — they  were  within  stone's 
throw — flashed  and  thundered  to  port  and 
starboard ;  the  ship  was  driving  swiftly  into 
the  surf.  "When  she  was  fairly  upon  the 
rocks,  Skipper  John,  then  a  hand  aboard 
(it  was  he  who  told  me  the  story),  ran  be- 
low and  tumbled  into  his  bunk,  believing  it 
to  be  the  better  place  to  drown  in. 

"  Well,  lads,"  said  he  to  the  men  in  the 
forecastle,  "  we  got  t'  go  this  time.  'Tis  no 
use  goin'  on  deck." 

Bnthhe  ship  drove  through  a  tickle  no 
wider  than  twice  her  beam  and  came  sud- 
denly into  the  quiet  water  of  a  harbour  I 

The  sealing-schooner  Bight  and  Tight 
struck  on  the  Fish  Rocks  off  Cape  Charles 
in  the  dusk  of  a  northeast  gale.  It  is  a 
jagged,  black  reef,  outlying  and  isolated; 
the  seas  wash  over  it  in  heavy  weather.  It 
was  a  bitter  gale ;  there  was  ice  in  the  sea, 
and  the  wind  was  wild  and  thick  with  snow ; 
she  was  driving  before  it — wrecked,  blind, 


28        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

utterly  lost.  The  breakers  flung  her  on  the 
reef,  broke  her  back,  crunched  her,  swept 
the  splinters  on.  Forty-two  men  were  of  a 
sudden  drowned  in  the  sea  beyond ;  but  the 
skipper  was  left  clinging  to  the  rock  in  a 
swirl  of  receding  water. 

"  Us  seed  un  there  in  the  marnin',"  said 
the  old  man  of  Cape  Charles  who  told  me 
the  story.  "  He  were  stickin'  to  it  like  a 
mussel,  with  the  sea  breakin'  right  over  un  I 
'Cod  I  he  were ! " 

He  laughed  and  shook  his  head ;  that  was 
a  tribute  to  the  strength  and  courage  with 
which  the  man  on  the  reef  had  withstood 
the  icy  breakers  through  the  night. 

"  Look !  us  couldn't  get  near  un,"  he  went 
on.  "'Twas  clear  enough  t'  see,  but  the 
wind  was  blowin'  wonderful,  an'  the  seas 
was  too  big  for  the  skiff.  Sure,  I  knows 
that ;  for  us  tried  it. 

"  *  Leave  us  build  a  fire ! '  says  my  woman. 
*  Leave  us  build  a  fire  on  the  head ! '  says 
she.  '  'Twill  let  un  know  they's  folk  lookin' 
oil' 


SHIPS  IN  PERIL  29 

"  *Twas  a  wonderful  big  fire  us  set ;  an'  it 
kep'  us  warm,  so  us  set  there  all  day  watchin' 
the  skipper  o'  the  Right  an'  Tight  on  Fish 
Rocks.  The  big  seas  jerked  un  loose  an' 
flung  un  about,  an'  many  a  one  washed  right 
over  un ;  but  nar  a  sea  could  carry  un  off. 
'Twas  a  wonderful  sight  t'  see  un  knocked 
off  his  feet,  an'  scramble  round  an'  cotch 
hold  somewheres  else.  'Cod  I  it  were — the 
way  that  man  stuck  t'  them  slippery  rocks 
all  day  long  I " 

He  laughed  again — not  heartlessly;  it 
was  the  only  way  in  which  he  could  expresi 
his  admiration. 

"  We  tried  the  skiff  again  afore  dark,"  he 
continued ;  "  but  'twasn't  no  use.  The  seas 
was  too  big.  Sure,  he  knowed  that  so  well 
as  we.     So  us  had  t'  leave  un  there  all  night. 

"'He'll  never  be  there  in  the  marnin',' 
says  my  woman. 

" '  You  wait,'  says  I,  *  an'  you'll  see.  I'm 
thinkin'  he  will.' 

"An'  he  was,  zur — right  there  on  Fish 
Rocks,  same  as  ever ;  still  stickin'  on  like  the 


30        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

toughest  ol'  mussel  ever  you  tasted.  Sure, 
I  had  t'  rub  me  eyes  when  I  looked ;  but 
'twas  he,  never  fear — 'twas  he,  stickin'  there 
like  a  mussel.  But  there  was  no  gettin'  un 
then.  Us  watched  un  all  that  day.  'Twas 
dark  afore  us  got  un  ashore. 

" '  You  come  nigh  it  that  time,'  says  I. 

" '  I'll  have  t'  come  a  sight  nigher,'  says 
he,  '  afore  /  goes ! ' " 

The  man  had  been  on  the  reef  more  than 
forty-eight  hours ! 

The  Army  Lass,  bound  north,  was  lost 
in  the  fog.  They  hove  her  to.  All  hands 
knew  that  she  lay  somewhere  near  the 
coast.  The  skipper  needed  a  sight  of  the 
rocks — just  a  glimpse  of  some  headland  or 
island — to  pick  the  course.  It  was  im- 
portant that  he  should  have  it.  There 
was  an  iceberg  floating  near ;  it  was  mass- 
ive ;  it  appeared  to  be  steady — and  the  sea 
was  quiet.  From  the  top  of  it,  he  thought 
(the  fog  was  dense  and  seemed  to  be  lying 
low),  he  might  see  far  and  near.    His  crew 


SHIPS  IN  PERIL  81 

put  him  on  the  ioe  with  the  quarter-boat 
and  then  hung  off  a  bit.  He  clambered  up 
the  side  of  the  berg.  Near  the  summit  he 
had  to  cut  his  foothold  with  an  axe.  This 
was  unfortunate;  for  he  gave  the  great 
white  mass  one  blow  too  many.  It  split 
under  his  feet.  He  fell  headlong  into  the 
widening  crevice.  But  he  was  apparently 
not  a  whit  the  worse  for  it  when  his  boat's 
crew  picked  him  up. 

A  schooner — ^let  her  be  called  the  Good 
Fortune — running  through  dense  fog,  with 
a  fair,  high  wind  and  all  sail  set,  struck  a 
"  twin  "  iceberg  bow  on.  She  was  wrecked 
in  a  flash :  her  jib-boom  was  rammed  into 
her  forecastle ;  her  bows  were  stove  in ;  her 
topmast  snapped  and  came  crashing  to  the 
deck.  Then  she  fell  away  from  the  ice; 
whereupon  the  wind  caught  her,  turned  her 
about,  and  drove  her,  stem  foremost,  into  a 
narrow  passage  which  lay  between  the  two 
towering  sections  of  the  "  twin."  She 
scraped  along,  striking  the  ice  on  either 


32        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

side;  and  with  every  blow,  down  came 
fragments  from  above. 

"  It  rained  chunks,"  said  the  old  skipper 
who  told  me  the  story.  "You  couldn't 
tell,  look  !  what  minute  you'd  get  knocked 
on  the  head." 

The  falling  ice  made  great  havoc  with 
the  deck-works ;  the  boats  were  crushed ; 
the  "house"  was  stove  in;  the  deck  was 
littered  with  ice.  But  the  Good  Fortune 
drove  safely  through,  was  rigged  with 
makeshift  sails,  made  harbour,  was  refitted 
by  all  hands — the  Labradormen  can  build 
a  ship  with  an  axe — and  continued  her 
voyage. 

I  have  said  that  the  Newfoundlanders 
occasionally  navigate  by  means  of  old 
rhymes ;  and  this  brings  me  to  the  case 
of  Zachariah,  the  skipper  of  the  Hea/venly 
Hest.  He  was  a  Newf'un'lander.  Neither 
wind,  fog  nor  a  loppy  sea  could  turn  his 
blood  to  water.  He  was  a  Newf'un'lander 
of  the  hardshell  breed.    So  he  sailed  the 


SHIPS  m  PERIL  83 

Heavenly  Rest  without  a  chart.  To  be 
sure,  he  favoured  the  day  for  getting  along, 
but  he  ran  through  the  night  when  he  was 
crowding  south,  and  blithely  took  his 
chance  with  islands  of  ice  and  rock  alike. 
He  had  some  faith  in  a  "telltale,"  had 
Zachariah,  but  he  scorned  charts.  It  was 
his  boast  that  if  he  could  not  carry  the 
harbours  and  headlands  and  shallows  of 
five  hundred  miles  of  hungry  coast  in  his 
head  he  should  give  up  the  Heavenly  Rest 
and  sail  a  paddle-punt  for  a  living.  It 
was  well  that  he  could — well  for  the  ship 
and  the  crew  and  the  folk  at  home.  For, 
at  the  time  of  which  I  write,  the  Rest^  too 
light  in  ballast  to  withstand  a  gusty  breeze, 
was  groping  through  the  fog  for  harbour 
from  a  gale  which  threatened  a  swift  de- 
scent. It  was  "  thick  as  bags,"  with  a  rising 
wind  running  in  from  the  sea,  and  the  surf 
breaking  and  hissing  within  hearing  to 
leeward. 

"  We  be  handy  t'  Hollow  Harbour,"  said 
Zachariah. 


34        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

"  Is  you  sure,  skipper  ?  "  asked  the  cook. 

"  Sure,"  said  Zachariah. 

The  Heamenly  Rest  was  in  desperate  case. 
She  was  running  in — pursuing  an  unfalter- 
ing course  for  an  unfamiliar,  rocky  shore. 
The  warning  of  the  surf  sounded  in  every 
man's  ears.  It  was  imperative  that  her 
true  position  should  soon  be  determined. 
The  skipper  was  perched  far  forward,  peer- 
ing through  the  fog  for  a  sight  of  the  coast. 

"  Sure,  an'  I  hopes,"  said  the  man  at  the 
wheel,  "  that  she  woan't  break  her  nose  on 
a  rock  afore  the  ol'  man  sees  un." 

"Joe  Bett's  P'intl"  exclaimed  the 
skipper. 

Dead  ahead,  and  high  in  the  air,  a  mass 
of  rock  loomed  through  the  mist.  The 
skipper  had  recognized  it  in  a  flash.  He 
ran  aft  and  took  the  wheel.  The  Hea/venly 
Rest  sheered  off  and  ran  to  sea. 

"  We'll  run  in  t'  Hollow  Harbour,"  said 
the  skipper. 

"Has  you  ever  been  there?"  said  the 
man  who  had  surrendered  the  wheeL 


SHIPS  IN  PERIL  86 

"Noa,  b'y,"  the  skipper  answered,  "but 
I'll  get  there,  whatever." 

The  nose  of  the  Heavenly  Best  was  turned 
shoreward.  Sang  the  skipper,  humming  it 
to  himself  in  a  rasping  sing-song : 

'  "  When  Joe  Bett's  P'int  you  is  abreast, 
Dane's  ^^ock  bears  due  west. 
West-nor'west  you  must  steer, 
"Til  Brimstone  Head  do  appear. 

"The  tickle's  narrow,  not  very  wide  ; 
The  deepest  water's  on  the  starboard  side 
When  in  the  harbour  you  is  shot, 
Four  fathoms  you  has  got." 

The  old  song  was  chart  enough  for  Skip- 
per Zachariah.  Three  times  the  Heavenly 
Rest  ran  in  and  out.  Then  she  sighted 
Dane's  Rock,  which  bore  due  west,  true 
enough.  West-nor'west  was  the  course  she 
followed,  running  blindly  through  the  fog 
and  heeling  to  the  wind.  Brimstone  Head 
appeared  in  due  time ;  and  in  due  time  the 
rocks  of  the  tickle — that  narrow  entrance 
to  the  harbour — appeared  in  vague,  forbid- 
ding  form   to   port  and  starboard.     The 


36        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

schooner  ran  to  the  starboard  for  the 
deeper  water.  Into  the  harbour  she  shot ; 
and  there  they  dropped  anchor,  caring  not 
at  all  whether  the  water  was  four  or  forty 
fathoms,  for  it  was  deep  enough.  Through 
the  night  the  gale  tickled  the  topmasts,  but 
the  ship  rode  smoothly  at  her  anchors,  and 
Skipper  Zachariah's  stentorian  sleep  was 
not  disturbed  by  any  sudden  call  to  duty. 

And  the  doctor  of  the  Deep  Sea  Mission 
has  had  many  a  similar  experience. 


IV 

DESPERA  TE  NEED 

IT  was  to  these  rough  waters  that  Dr. 
Grenfell  came  when  the  need  of  the 
folk  reached  his  ears  and  touched  his 
heart.  Before  that,  in  the  remoter  parts  of 
Newfoundland  and  on  the  coast  of  Labrador 
there  were  no  doctors.  The  folk  depended 
for  healing  upon  traditional  cures,  upon  old 
women  who  worked  charms,  upon  remedies 
ingeniously  devised  to  meet  the  need  of  the 
moment,  upon  deluded  persons  who  pre- 
scribed medicines  of  the  most  curious  de- 
scription, upon  a  rough-and-ready  surgery  of 
their  own,  in  which  the  implements  of  the 
kitchen  and  of  the  spHtting-stage  served  a 
useful  purpose.  For  example,  there  was  a 
misled  old  fellow  who  set  himself  up  as  a 
healer  in  a  lonely  cove  of  the  Newfound- 
land coast,  where  he  lived  a  hermit,  verily 
87 


38        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

believing,  it  may  be,  in  the  glory  of  his 
call  and  in  the  blessed  efficacy  of  his  min- 
istrations ;  his  cure  for  consumption — it  was 
a  tragic  failure,  in  one  case,  at  least — was  a 
bull's  heart,  dried  and  powdered  and  ad- 
ministered with  faith  and  regularity.  Else- 
where there  was  a  man,  stricken  with  a 
mortal  ailment,  who,  upon  the  recom- 
mendation of  a  kindly  neighbour,  regu- 
larly dosed  himself  with  an  ill-flavoured 
liquid  obtained  by  boiling  cast-off  pulley- 
blocks  in  water.  There  was  also  a  father 
who  most  hopefully  attempted  to  cure  his 
little  lad  of  diphtheria  by  wrapping  his 
throat  with  a  split  herring;  but,  unhap- 
pily, as  he  has  said,  "the  wee  feller 
choked  hisself  t'  death,"  notwithstand- 
ing. There  was  another  father — a  man 
of  grim,  heroic  disposition — whose  little 
daughter  chanced  to  freeze  her  feet  to 
the  very  bone  in  midwinter ;  when  he 
perceived  that  a  surgical  operation  could 
no  longer  be  delayed,  he  cut  them  off 
with  an  axe. 


DESPERATE  NEED  39 

An  original  preventative  of  sea-boils — 
with  which  the  fishermen  are  cruelly 
afflicted  upon  the  hands  and  wrists  in 
raw  weather — was  evolved  by  a  frowsy- 
headed  old  Labradorman  of  serious  parts. 

"  /  never  has  none,"  said  he,  in  the  fashion 
of  superior  fellows. 
"  No  ?  " 

"  Nar  a  one.    No,  zvr  !    Not  me  !  " 
A  glance  of  interested  inquiry  elicited 
no    response.     It    but    prolonged    a  large 
silence. 

"  Have  you  never  had  a  sea-boil  ?  "  with 
the  note  and  sharp  glance  of  incredulity. 
"  Not  me.    Not  since  I  got  my  cure." 
"  And  what  might  that  cure  be  ?  " 
"  Well,  zur,"  was  the  amazing  reply,  "  I 
cuts  my  nails  on  a  Monday." 

It  must  be  said,  however,  that  the  New- 
foundland government  did  provide  a  phy- 
sician— of  a  sort.  Every  summer  he  was 
sent  north  with  the  mail-boat,  which  made 
not  more  than  six  trips,  touching  here  and 


40        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

there  at  long  intervals,  and,  of  a  hard 
season,  failing  altogether  to  reach  the 
farthest  ports.  While  the  boat  waited — 
an  hour,  or  a  half,  as  might  be — the 
doctor  went  ashore  to  cure  the  sick,  if 
he  chanced  to  be  in  the  humour;  other- 
wise the  folk  brought  the  sick  aboard, 
where  they  were  painstakingly  treated  or 
not,  as  the  doctor's  humour  went.  The 
government  seemed  never  to  inquire  too 
minutely  into  the  qualifications  and  char- 
acter of  its  appointee.  The  incumbent  for 
many  years — the  folk  thank  God  that  he 
is  dead — was  an  inefficient,  ill-tempered, 
cruel  man ;  if  not  the  very  man  himself, 
he  was  of  a  kind  with  the  Newfoundland 
physician  who  ran  a  flag  of  warning  to 
his  masthead  when  he  set  out  to  get  very 
drunk. 

The  mail-boat  dropped  anchor  one  night 
in  a  far-away  harbour  of  the  Labrador, 
where  there  was  desperate  need  of  a 
doctor  to  ease  a  man's  pain.  They  had 
waited  a  long  time,  patiently,  day  after 


DESPEEATE  NEED  41 

day,  I  am  told;  and  when  at  last  the 
mail  boat  came,  the  man's  skipper  put 
out  in  glad  haste  to  fetch  the  govern- 
ment physician. 

"  HeVe  turned  in,"  they  told  him  aboard. 

What  did  that  matter?  The  skipper 
roused  the  doctor. 

"  We've  a  sick  man  ashore,  zur,"  said  he, 
"  an'  he  wants  you  t'  come " 

"What!"  roared  the  doctor.  "Think 
I'm  going  to  turn  out  this  time  of  night  ?  " 

"Sure,  zur,"  stammered  the  astounded 
skipper.  "  I — I — s'pose  so.  He's  very  sick, 
zur.    He's  coughin' " 

"  Let  him  cough  himself  to  death  I "  said 
the  doctor. 

Turn  out  ?  Not  he !  Kather,  he  turned 
over  in  his  warm  berth.  It  is  to  be  assumed 
that  the  sick  man  died  in  pain ;  it  is  to  be 
assumed,  too,  that  the  physician  continued 
a  tranquil  slumber,  for  the  experience  was 
not  exceptional. 

"  Let  'em  die ! "  he  had  said  more  than 
once. 


42        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

The  government  had  provided  for  the 
transportation  of  sick  fishermen  from  the 
Labrador  coast  to  their  homes  in  Newfound- 
land ;  these  men  were  of  the  great  New- 
foundland fleet  of  cod-fishing  schooners, 
which  fish  the  Labrador  seas  in  the  summer. 
It  needed  only  the  doctor's  word  to  get  the 
boon.  Once  a  fisherman  brought  his  con- 
sumptive son  aboard — a  young  lad,  with  but 
a  few  weeks  of  life  left.  The  boy  wanted 
his  mother,  who  was  at  home  in  Newfound- 
land. 

"  Ay,  he's  fair  sich  for  his  mother,"  said 
the  father  to  the  doctor.  "  I'm  askin'  you, 
zur,  t'  take  un  home  on  the  mail-boat." 

The  doctor  was  in  a  perverse  mood  that 
day.     He  would  not  take  the  boy. 

"Sure,  zur,"  said  the  fisherman,  "the 
schooner's  not  goin'  'til  fall,  an'  I've  no 
money,  an'  the  lad's  dyin'." 

But  still  the  doctor  would  not. 

"I'm  thinkin',  zur,"  said  the  fisherman, 
steadily,  "  that  you're  not  quite  knowin'  that 
the  lad  wants  t'  see  his  mother  afore  he  dies." 


DESPERATE  NEED  43 

The  doctor  laughed. 

"  We'll  have  a  laugh  at  you^"*  cried  the 
indignant  fisherman,  "when  you  comes  t' 
die!" 

Then  he  cursed  the  doctor  most  heartily 
and  took  his  son  ashore.  He  was  right — 
they  did  have  a  laugh  at  the  doctor ;  the 
whole  coast  might  have  laughed  when  he 
came  to  die.  Being  drunk  on  a  stormy 
night,  he  fell  down  the  companionway  and 
broke  his  neck. 

Deep  in  the  bays  and  up  the  rivers  south 
of  Hamilton  Inlet,  which  is  itself  rather 
heavily  timbered,  there  is  wood  to  be  had 
for  the  cutting ;  but  "  down  t'  Chidley  " — 
which  is  the  northernmost  point  of  the  Lab- 
rador coast — the  whole  world  is  bare ;  there 
is  neither  tree  nor  shrub,  shore  nor  inland,  to 
grace  the  naked  rock ;  the  land  lies  bleak 
and  desolate.  But,  once,  a  man  lived  there 
the  year  round.  I  don't  know  why ;  it  is 
inexplicable ;  but  I  am  sure  that  the  shift- 
less fellow  and  his  wife  had  never  an  ink- 


44        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

ling  that  the  circumstance  was  otherwise 
than  commonplace  and  reasonable ;  and  the 
child,  had  he  lived,  would  have  continued  to 
dwell  there,  boy  and  man,  in  faith  that  the 
earth  was  good  to  live  in.  One  hard  winter 
the  man  burnt  all  his  wood  long  before  the 
schooners  came  up  from  the  lower  coast.  It 
was  a  desperate  strait  to  come  to ;  but  I  am 
sure  that  he  regarded  his  situation  with  sur- 
prising phlegm  ;  doubtless  he  slept  as  sound, 
if  not  as  warm,  as  before.  There  was  no 
more  wood  to  be  had ;  so  he  burnt  the  fur- 
niture, every  stick  of  it,  and  when  that  was 
gone,  began  on  the  frame  of  his  house — a 
turf  hut,  builded  under  a  kindly  cliff,  shel- 
tered somewhat  from  the  winds  from  the 
frozen  sea.  As,  rafter  by  rafter,  the  frame 
was  withdrawn,  he  cut  off  the  roof  and 
folded  in  the  turf  walls ;  thus,  day  by  day, 
the  space  within  dwindled ;  his  last  fire  was 
to  consume  the  last  of  his  shelter — which, 
no  doubt,  troubled  him  not  at  all ;  for  the 
day  was  not  yet  come.  It  is  an  ugly  story. 
When  they  were  found  in  the  spring,  the 


DESPERATE  NEED  45 

woman  lay  dying  on  a  heap  of  straw  in  a 
muddy  corner — she  was  afllicted  with  hip- 
disease — and  the  house  was  tumbling  about 
her  ears ;  the  child,  new  born,  had  long  ago 
frozen  on  its  mother's  breast. 

A  doctor  of  the  Newfoundland  outports 
was  once  called  to  a  little  white  cottage 
where  three  children  lay  sick  of  diphtheria. 
He  was  the  family  physician ;  that  is  to  say, 
the  fisherman  paid  him  so  much  by  the  year 
for  medical  attendance.  But  the  injection 
of  antitoxin  is  a  "  surgical  operation "  and 
therefore  not  provided  for  by  the  annual 
fee. 

"  This,"  said  the  doctor,  "  will  cost  you 
two  dollars  an  injection,  John." 

"  Oh,  ay,  zur,"  was  the  ready  reply.  "  I'll 
pay  you,  zur.     Go  on,  zur ! " 

"  But  you  know  my  rule,  John — no  pay, 
no  work.  I  can't  break  it  for  you,  you 
know,  or  I'd  have  to  break  it  for  half  the 
coast." 

"Oh,  ayl    'Tis  all  right.    I  wants  un 


46        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

cured.  I'll  pay  you  when  I  sells  me 
fish." 

"But  you  know  my  rule,  John — cash 
down." 

The  fisherman  had  but  four  dollars — no 
more ;  nor  could  he  obtain  any  more,  though 
the  doctor  gave  him  ample  time.  I  am  sure 
that  he  loved  his  children  dearly,  but,  un- 
fortunately, he  had  no  more  than  four  dol- 
lars; and  there  was  no  other  doctor  for 
fifty  miles  up  and  down  the  coast. 

"Four  dollars,"  said  the  doctor,  "two 
children.     "Which  ones  shall  it  be,  John  ?  " 

Which  ones  ?  Why,  of  course,  after  all, 
the  doctor  had  himself  to  make  the  choice. 
John  couldn't.  So  the  doctor  chose  the 
"  handiest "  ones.     The  other  one  died. 

"  Well,"  said  John,  unresentfully,  the  day 
after  the  funeral,  "  I  s'pose  a  doctor  haves  a 
right  t'  be  paid  for  what  he  does.  But," 
much  puzzled,  "  'tis  kind  o'  queer  I " 

This  is  not  a  work  of  fiction.  These  inci- 
dents  are    true.    I   set  them  down  here 


DESPERATE  NEED  47 

for  the  purpose  of  adequately  showing  the 
need  of  such  a  practitioner  as  Wilfred  T. 
Grenfell  in  the  sphere  in  which  he  now 
labours.  My  point  is — that  if  in  the  more 
settled  places,  where  physicians  might  be 
summoned,  such  neglect  and  brutality  could 
exist,  in  what  a  lamentable  condition  were 
the  folk  of  the  remoter  parts,  where  even 
money  could  not  purchase  healing!  Nor 
are  these  true  stories  designed  to  reflect  upon 
the  regular  practitioners  of  Newfoundland ; 
nor  should  they  create  a  false  impression 
concerning  them.  I  have  known  many  no- 
ble physicians  in  practice  there ;  indeed,  I  am 
persuaded  that  heroism  and  devotion  are, 
perhaps,  their  distinguishing  characteristics. 
God  knows,  there  is  little  enough  gain  to 
be  had  I  God  knows,  too,  that  that  little  is 
hard  earned !  These  men  do  their  work 
well  and  courageously,  and  as  adequately 
as  may  be ;  it  is  on  the  coasts  beyond  that 
the  mission-doctor  labours. 


A  HELPING  HAND 

WHILE  the  poor  "liveyeres"  and 
Newfoundland  fishermen  thus  de- 
pended upon  the  mail-boat  doc- 
tor and  their  own  strange  inventions  for  re- 
lief, Wilfred  Grenfell,  this  well-born,  Ox- 
ford-bred young  Englishman,  was  walking 
the  London  hospitals.  He  was  athletic,  ad- 
venturous, dogged,  unsentimental,  merry, 
kind ;  moreover — and  most  happily — he  was 
used  to  the  sea,  and  he  loved  it.  It  chanced 
one  night  that  he  strayed  into  the  Taber- 
nacle in  East  London,  where  D.  L.  Moody, 
the  American  evangelist,  was  preaching. 
When  he  came  out  he  had  resolved  to  make 
his  religion  "practical."  There  was  noth- 
ing violent  in  this — no  fevered,  ill-judged 
determination  to  martyr  himself  at  all  costs. 
It  was  a  quiet  resolve  to  make  the  best  of 
48 


A  HELPING  HAND  49 

his  life — which  he  would  have  done  at  any 
rate,  I  think,  for  he  was  a  young  English- 
man of  good  breeding  and  the  finest  im- 
pulses. At  once  he  cast  about  for  "  some 
way  in  which  he  could  satisfy  the  aspira- 
tions of  a  young  medical  man,  and  combine 
with  this  a  desire  for  adventure  and  definite 
Christian  work." 

I  had  never  before  met  a  missionary  of 
that  frank  type.  "  Why,"  I  exclaimed  to 
him,  off  the  coast  of  Labrador,  not  long 
3^gOj  "  you  seem  to  like  this  sort  of 
life  I " 

We  were  aboard  the  mission  steamer, 
bound  north  under  full  steam  and  all  sail. 
He  had  been  in  feverish  haste  to  reach  the 
northern  harbours,  where,  as  he  knew,  the 
sick  were  watching  for  his  coming.  The 
fair  wind,  the  rush  of  the  little  steamer  on 
her  way,  pleased  him. 

"Oh,"  said  he,  somewhat  impatiently, 
"  rm  not  a  martyr." 

So  he  found  what  he  sought.  After  ap- 
plying certain  revolutionary  ideas  to  Sun- 


60        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

day-school  work  in  the  London  slums,  in 
which  a  horizontal  bar  and  a  set  of  boxing- 
gloves  for  a  time  held  equal  place  with  the 
Bible  and  the  hymn-book,  he  joined,  the 
stajff  of  the  Royal  National  Mission  to 
Deep  Sea  Fishermen,  and  established  the 
medical  mission  to  the  fishermen  of  the 
North  Sea.  When  that  work  was  organ- 
ized— when  the  fight  was  gone  out  of  it — 
he  sought  a  harder  task ;  he  is  of  that  type, 
then  extraordinary  but  now  familiar,  which 
finds  no  delight  where  there  is  no  difficulty. 
In  the  spring  of  1892  he  set  sail  from  Great 
Yarmouth  Harbour  for  Labrador  in  a 
ninety-ton  schooner.  Since  then,  in  the 
face  of  hardship,  peril,  and  prejudice,  he 
has,  with  a  light  heart  and  strong  purpose, 
healed  the  sick,  preached  the  Word,  clothed 
the  naked,  fed  the  starving,  given  shelter  to 
them  that  had  no  roof,  championed  the 
wronged — in  all,  devotedly  fought  evil,  pov- 
erty, oppression,  and  disease  ;  for  he  is  bit- 
terly intolerant  of  those  things.     And 

"  It's  been  jolly  good  fun  1 "  says  he. 


A  HELPING  HAND  51 

The  immediate  inspiration  of  this  work 
was  the  sermon  preached  in  East  London 
by  D.  L.  Moody.  Later  in  life — indeed, 
soon  before  the  great  evangelist's  death — 
Dr.  Grenfell  thanked  him  for  that  sermon. 
"  And  what  have  you  been  doing  since  ? " 
was  Mr.  Moody's  prompt  and  searching 
question.  "  What  ha/oe  you  been  doing 
since  f "  Dr.  Grenfell  might  with  pro- 
priety and  effect  have  placed  in  Mr. 
Moody's  hands  such  letters  as  those  which 
I  reprint,  saying:  "What  have  I  been 
doing  since  ?  I  have  been  kept  busy,  sir, 
responding  to  such  calls  as  these."  Such 
calls  as  these : 

s 

•  Docter  plase  I  whant  to  see  you.  Doeher 
sir  have  you  got  a  leg  if  you  have  Will  you 
plase  send  him  Down  Praps  he  may  fet  and 
you  would  oblig. 

Keverance  dr.  Grandfell.  Dear  sir  we 
are  expecting  you  hup  and  we  would  like 
for  you  to  come  so  quick  as  you  can  for  my 
dater  is  very  sick  with  a  very  large  sore 
under  her  left  harm  we  emenangin  that  the 
old  is  two  enchis  deep  and  tow  enches  wide 


52        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

flase  com  as  quick  as  you  can  to  save  life 
remains  yours  truely. 

Docker, — Please  wel  you  send  me  som- 
ting  for  the  pain  in  my  feet  and  what  you 
proismed  to  send  my  little  boy.  Docker  I 
am  almost  cripple,  it  is  up  my  hips,  I  can 
hardly  walk.  This  is  my  housban  is  gain- 
ing you  this  note  from 

To  Dr.  Gransfield 

Dear  honrabel  Sir, 
I  would  wish  to  ask  you  Sir,  if  you  would 
Be  pleased  to  give  me  and  my  wife  a  littel 
poor  close.  I  was  going  in  the  Bay  to  cut 
some  wood.  But  I  am  all  amost  blind  and 
cant  Do  much  so  if  you  would  spear  me 
some  Sir  I  should  Be  very  thankf  uU  to  you 
Sir. 

I  got  Bad  splotches  all  over  my  Body  and 
i  dont  know  what  the  cause  of  it  is.  Please 
Have  you  got  anything  for  it.  i  Have'nt 
got  any  money  to  Pay  you  now  for  anything 
But  i  wont  forget  to  Pay  you  when  i  gets 
the  money. 

doctor — i  have  a  compleant  i  ham  weak 
with  wind  on  the  chest,  weaknes  all  all  over 
me  up  in  my  harm. 

Dear  Dr.  Grenfell. 
I  would  like  for  you  to  Have  time  to 


A  HELPING  HAND  53 

come  Down  to  my  House  Before  you  leaves 
to  go  to  St.  Anthony.  My  little  Girl  is 
very  Bad.  it  seems  all  in  Her  neck.  Cant 
Ply  her  Neck  forward  if  do  she  nearly  goes 
in  the  fits,  i  dont  know  what  it  is  the 
matter  with  Her  myself.  But  if  you  see 
Her  you  would  know  what  the  matter  with 
Her.  Please  send  a  "Word  By  the  Bearer 
what  gives  you  this  note  and  let  me  know 
where  you  will  have  time  to  come  down  to 
my  House,  i  lives  down  the  Bay  a  Place 
called  Berry  Head. 

"What  have  you  been  doing  since?" 
Dr.  Grenfell  has  not  been  idle.  There  is 
now  a  mission  hospital  at  St.  Anthony,  near 
the  extreme  northeast  point  of  the  New- 
foundland coast.  There  is  another,  well- 
equipped  and  commodious,  at  Battle  Har- 
bour— a  rocky  island  lying  out  from  the 
Labrador  coast  near  the  Strait  of  Belle  Isle 
— which  is  open  the  year  round ;  when  the 
writer  was  last  on  the  coast,  it  was  in 
charge  of  Dr.  Cluny  McPherson,  a  coura- 
geous young  physician,  Newfoundland-bom, 
who  went  six  hundred  miles  up  the  coast  by 
dog-team  in  the  dead  of  winter,  finding  shel- 
ter where  he  might,  curing  whom  he  could 


54        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

— everywhere  seeking  out  those  who  needed 
him,  caring  not  a  whit,  it  appears,  for  the 
peril  and  hardship  of  the  long  white  road. 
There  is  a  third  at  Indian  Harbour,  half- 
way up  the  coast,  which  is  open  through 
the  fishing  season.  It  is  conducted  with 
the  care  and  precision  of  a  London  hospital 
— admirably  kept,  well-ordered,  efficient. 
The  physician  in  charge  is  Dr.  George  H. 
Simpson — a  wiry,  keen,  brave  little  English- 
man, who  goes  about  in  an  open  boat,  what- 
ever the  distance,  whatever  the  weather ;  he 
is  a  man  of  splendid  courage  and  sympathy : 
the  fishing-folk  love  him  for  his  kind  heart 
and  for  the  courage  with  which  he  responds 
k)  their  every  call.  There  is  also  the  little 
hospital  steamer  Strathcona^  in  which  Dr. 
Grenfell  makes  the  round  of  all  the  coast, 
from  the  time  of  the  break-up  until  the  fall 
gales  have  driven  the  fishing-schoonera 
home  to  harbour. 


Wi 


VI 

FAITH  and  DUTY 

v_ 

""HEN  Dr.  Grenfell  first  appeared 
on  the  coast,  I  am  told,  the  folk 
thought  him  a  madman  of  some 
benign  description.  He  knew  nothing  of 
the  reefs,  the  tides,  the  currents,  cared  noth- 
ing, apparently,  for  the  winds ;  he  sailed 
with  the  confidence  and  reckless  courage  of 
a  Labrador  skipper.  Fearing  at  times  to 
trust  his  schooner  in  unknown  waters,  he 
went  about  in  a  whale-boat,  and  so  hard  did 
he  drive  her  that  he  wore  her  out  in  a  single 
season.  She  was  capsized  with  all  hands, 
once  driven  out  to  sea,  many  times  nearly 
swamped,  once  blown  on  the  rocks ;  never 
before  was  a  boat  put  to  such  tasks  on  that 
coast,  and  at  the  end  of  it  she  was  wrecked 
beyond  repair.  Next  season  he  appeared 
with  a  little  steam-launch,  the  Princess  May 
— her  beam  was  eight  feet  I — in  which  he 
55 


66        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

not  only  journeyed  from  St.  Johns  to  Lab- 
rador, to  the  astonishment  of  the  whole 
colony,  but  sailed  the  length  of  that  bitter 
coast,  passing  into  the  gulf  and  safely  out 
again,  and  pushing  to  the  very  farthest  set- 
tlements in  the  north.  Late  in  the  fall,  upon 
the  return  journey  to  St.  Johns  in  stormy 
weather,  she  was  reported  lost,  and  many  a 
skipper,  I  suppose,  wondered  that  she  had 
lived  so  long ;  but  she  weathered  a  gale  that 
bothered  the  mail-boat,  and  triumphantly 
made  St.  Johns,  after  as  adventurous  a  voy- 
age, no  doubt,  as  ever  a  boat  of  her  measure 
survived. 

"Sure,"  said  a  skipper,  "I  don't  know 
how  she  done  it.  The  Lord,"  he  added, 
piously,  "must  kape  an  eye  on  that 
man." 

There  is  a  new  proverb  on  the  coast.  The 
folk  say,  when  a  great  wind  blows,  "  This'U 
bring  Grenfell ! "  Often  it  does.  He  is  im- 
patient of  delay,  fretted  by  inaction ;  a  gale 
is  the  wind  for  him — a  wind  to  take  him 


FAITH  AND  DUTY  57 

swiftly  towards  the  place  ahead.  Had  he 
been  a  weakling,  he  would  long  ago  have 
died  on  the  coast ;  had  he  been  a  coward,  a 
multitude  of  terrors  would  long  ago  have 
driven  him  to  a  life  ashore;  had  he  been 
anything  but  a  true  man  and  tender,  indeed, 
he  would  long  ago  have  retreated  under  the 
suspicion  and  laughter  of  the  folk.  But  he 
has  outsailed  the  Labrador  skippers — out- 
dared them — done  deeds  of  courage  under 
their  very  eyes  that  they  would  shiver  to 
contemplate, — never  in  a  foolhardy  spirit; 
always  with  the  object  of  kindly  service. 
So  he  has  the  heart  and  willing  hand  of 
every  hones  f  man  on  the  Labrador — and  of 
none  more  than  of  the  men  of  his  crew,  who 
take  the  chances  with  him ;  they  are  wholly 
devoted. 

One  of  his  engineers,  for  example,  once 
developed  the  unhappy  habit  of  knocking 
the  cook  down. 

"  You  must  keep  your  temper,"  said  the 
doctor.     "  This  won't  do,  you  know." 

But  there  came  an  unfortunate  day  when, 


68        DE.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

being  out  of  temper,  the  engineer  again 
knocked  the  cook  down. 

"  This  is  positively  disgraceful ! "  said  the 
doctor.  "  I  can't  keep  a  quarrelsome  fellow 
aboard  the  mission-ship.  Remember  that, 
if  you  will,  when  next  you  feel  tempted  to 
strike  the  cook." 

The  engineer  protested  that  he  would 
never  again  lay  hands  on  the  cook,  what- 
ever the  provocation.  But  again  he  lost  his 
temper,  and  down  went  the  poor  cook,  flat 
on  his  back. 

"  I'll  discharge  you,"  said  the  doctor,  an- 
grily, "  at  the  end  of  the  cruise ! " 

The  engineer  pleaded  for  anot  her  chance. 
He  was  denied.  From  day  to  day  he  re- 
newed his  plea,  but  to  no  purpose,  and  at 
last  the  crew  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
something  really  ought  to  be  done  for  the 
engineer,  who  was  visibly  fretting  himself 
thin. 

"  Yery  well,"  said  the  doctor  to  the  en- 
gineer ;  "  I'U  make  this  agreement  with  you. 
If  ever  again  you  knock  down  the  cook,  I'll 


FAITH  AND  DUTY  69 

put  you  ashore  at  the  first  land  we  cjome  to, 
and  you  may  get  back  to  St.  Johns  as  best 
you  can." 

It  was  a  hard  alternative.  The  doctor  is 
not  a  man  to  give  or  take  when  the  bargain 
has  been  struck ;  the  engineer  knew  that  he 
would  surely  go  ashore  somewhere  on  that 
desolate  coast,  whether  the  land  was  a  bar- 
ren island  or  a  frequented  harbour,  if  ever 
again  the  cook  tempted  him  beyond  endur- 
ance. 

"  I'll  stand  by  it,  sir,"  he  said,  neverthe- 
less ;  "  for  I  don't  want  to  leave  you." 

In  the  course  of  time  the  Princess  May 
was  wrecked  or  worn  out.  Then  came  the 
Julia  Sheridam,^  thirty-five  feet  long,  which 
the  mission  doctor  bought  while  she  yet  lay 
under  water  from  her  last  wreck ;  he  raised 
her,  refitted  her  with  what  money  he  had, 
and  pursued  his  venturesome  and  beneficent 
career,  until  she,  too,  got  beyond  so  hard  a 
service.  Many  a  gale  she  weathered,  off 
"  the  worst  coast  in  the  world  " — often,  in- 


60        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

deed,  in  thick,  wild  weather,  the  doctor  him- 
self thought  the  little  craft  would  go  down ; 
but  she  is  now  happily  superannuated,  car- 
rying the  mail  in  the  quieter  waters  of  Ham- 
ilton Inlet.  Next  came  the  SirDonald — a 
stout  ship,  which  in  turn  disappeared, 
crushed  in  the  ice.  The  Strathcona,  with  a 
hospital  amidships,  is  now  doing  duty ;  and 
she  will  continue  to  go  up  and  down  the 
coast,  in  and  out  of  the  inlets,  until  she  in 
her  turn  finds  the  ice  and  the  wind  and  the 
rocks  too  much  for  her. 

"  'Tis  bound  t'  come,  soon  or  late,"  said  a 
cautious  friend  of  the  mission.  "  He  drives 
her  too  hard.  He've  a  right  t'  do  what  he 
likes  with  his  own  life,  I  s'pose,  but  he've  a 
call  t'  remember  that  the  crew  has  folks  t' 
home." 

But  the  mission  doctor  is  not  inconsider- 
ate ;  he  is  in  a  hurry — the  coast  is  long,  the 
season  short,  the  need  such  as  to  wring  a 
man's  heart.  Every  new  day  holds  an  op- 
portunity for  doing  a  good  deed — not  if  he 


FAITH  AND  DUTY  61 

dawdles  in  the  harbours  when  a  gale  is 
abroad,  but  only  if  he  passes  swiftly  from 
place  to  place,  with  a  brave  heart  meeting 
the  dangers  as  they  come.  He  is  the  only 
doctor  to  visit  the  Labrador  shore  of  the 
Gulf,  the  Strait  shore  of  Newfoundland, 
the  populous  east  coast  of  the  northern 
peninsula  of  Newfoundland,  the  only  doc- 
tor known  to  the  Esquimaux  and  poor  "  live- 
yeres "  of  the  northern  coast  of  Labrador, 
the  only  doctor  most  of  the  "  liveyeres  "  and 
green-fish  catchers  of  the  middle  coast  can 
reach,  save  the  hospital  physician  at  Indian 
Harbour.  He  has  a  round  of  three  thousand 
miles  to  make.  It  is  no  wonder  that  he 
"  drives  "  the  little  steamer  — even  at  full 
steam,  with  all  sail  spread  (as  I  have  known 
him  to  do),  when  the  fog  is  thick  and  the 
sea  is  spread  with  great  bergs. 

"  I'm  in  a  hurry,"  he  said,  with  an  impa- 
tient sigh.  "  The  season's  late.  We  must 
get  along." 

We  fell  in  with  him  at  Red  Ray  in  the 


62        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

Strait,  in  the  thick  of  a  heavy  gale  from 
the  northeast.  The  wind  had  blown  for  two 
days ;  the  sea  was  running  high,  and  still 
fast  rising ;  the  schooners  were  huddled  in 
the  harbours,  with  all  anchors  out,  many  of 
them  hanging  on  for  dear  life,  though  they 
lay  in  shelter.  The  sturdy  little  coastal 
boat,  with  four  times  the  strength  of  the 
Strathcona^  had  made  hard  work  of  it  that 
day — there  was  a  time  when  she  but  held 
her  own  off  a  lee  shore  in  the  teeth  of  the 
big  wind. 

It  was  drawing  on  towards  night  when  the 
doctor  came  aboard  for  a  surgeon  from  Bos- 
ton, a  specialist,  for  whom  he  had  been  wait- 
ing. 

"  I  see  you've  steam  up,"  said  the  captain 
of  the  coastal  boat.  "I  hope  you're  not 
going  out  in  this,  doctor ! " 

"  I  have  some  patients  at  the  Battle  Har- 
bour Hospital,  waiting  for  our  good  friend 
from  Boston,"  said  the  doctor,  briskly. 
"I'm  in  a  hurry.  Oh,  yes,  I'm  going 
outl" 


FAITH  AND  DUTY  63 

"  For  God's  sake,  don't ! "  said  the  captain 
earnestly. 

The  doctor's  eye  chanced  to  fall  on  the 
gentleman  from  Boston,  who  was  bending 
over  his  bag — a  fine,  fearless  fellow,  whom 
the  prospect  of  putting  out  in  that  chip  of  a 
steamer  would  not  have  perturbed,  though 
the  doctor  may  then  not  have  known  it. 
At  any  rate,  as  though  bethinking  himself 
of  something  half  forgotten,  he  changed  his 
mind  of  a  sudden. 

"  Oh,  very  well,"  he  said.  "  I'll  wait  un- 
til the  gale  blows  out." 

He  managed  to  wait  a  day — no  longer ; 
and  the  wind  was  still  wild,  the  sea  higher 
than  ever ;  there  was  ice  in  the  road,  and 
the  fog  was  dense.  Then  out  he  went  into 
the  thick  of  it.  He  bumped  an  iceberg, 
scraped  a  rock,  fairly  smothered  the  steamer 
with  broken  water;  and  at  midnight — the 
most  marvellous  feat  of  all — he  crept  into 
Battle  Harbour  through  a  narrow,  difficult 
passage,  and  dropped  anchor  off  the  mission 
wharf. 


64        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

Doubtless  he  enjoyed  the  experience 
while  it  lasted — and  promptly  forgot  it, 
as  being  commonplace.  I  have  heard  of 
him,  caught  in  the  night  in  a  winter's 
gale  of  wind  and  snow,  threading  a 
tumultuous,  reef-strewn  sea,  his  skipper 
at  the  wheel,  himself  on  the  bowsprit, 
guiding  the  ship  by  the  flash  and  roar 
of  breakers,  while  the  sea  tumbled  over 
him.  If  the  chance  passenger  who  told 
me  the  story  is  to  be  believed,  upon  that 
trying  occasion  the  doctor  had  the  "time 
of  his  life." 

"All  that  man  wanted,"  I  told  the 
doctor  subsequently,  "was,  as  he  says,  'to 
bore  a  hole  in  the  bottom  of  the  ship  and 
crawl  out.' " 

"  "Why ! "  exclaimed  the  doctor,  with  a 
laugh  of  surprise.  "  He  wasn't  frightened^ 
was  he  ?  " 

Fear  of  the  sea  is  quite  incomprehensible 
to  this  man.  The  passenger  was  very  much 
frightened;  he  vowed  never  to  sail  with 
"that  devil"  again.     But    the    doctor  is 


FAITH  AND  DUTY  65 

very  far  from  being  a  dare-devil;  though 
he  is,  to  be  sure,  a  man  altogether  un- 
afraid ;  it  seems  to  me  that  his  heart  can. 
never  have  known  the  throb  of  fear.  Per- 
haps that  is  in  part  because  he  has  a  blessed 
lack  of  imagination,  in  part,  perhaps,  be- 
cause he  has  a  body  as  sound  as  ever  God 
gave  to  a  man,  and  has  used  it  as  a  man 
should;  bat  it  is  chiefly  because  of  his 
simple  and  splendid  faith  that  he  is  an 
instrument  in  God's  hands — God's  to  do 
with  as  He  will,  as  he  would  say.  His 
faith  is  exceptional,  I  am  sure-^childlike, 
steady,  overmastering,  and  withal,  if  I  may 
so  characterize  it,  healthy.  It  takes  some- 
thing such  as  the  faith  he  has  to  move  a 
man  to  run  a  little  steamer  at  full  speed  in 
the  fog  when  there  is  ice  on  every  hand. 
It  is  hardly  credible,  but  quite  true,  and 
short  of  the  truth :  neither  wind  nor  ice 
nor  fog,  nor  all  combined,  can  keep  the 
Strathcona  in  harbour  when  there  comes  a 
call  for  help  from  beyond.  The  doctor 
clambers  cheerfully  out  on  the   bowsprit 


66        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

and  keeps  both  eyes  open.  "  As  the  Lord 
wills,"  says  he,  "  whether  for  wreck  or 
service.     I  am  about  His  business." 

It   is   a  sublime  expression  of  the  old 
faith. 


vn 

THE  L/f^EYERE 

DOCTOK  GRENFELL'S  patients  are 
of  three  classes.  There  is  first  the 
"  liveyere  " — the  inhabitant  of  the 
Labrador  coast — the  most  ignorant  and 
wretched  of  them  all.  There  is  the  New- 
foundland "outporter" — the  small  fisher- 
man of  the  remoter  coast,  who  must  depend 
wholly  upon  his  hook  and  line  for  subsist- 
ence. There  is  the  Labradorman — the 
Newfoundland  fisherman  of  the  better 
class,  who  fishes  the  Labrador  coast  in 
the  summer  season  and  returns  to  his 
home  port  when  the  snow  begins  to  fly 
in  the  fall.  Some  description  of  these 
three  classes  is  here  offered,  that  the 
reader  may  understand  the  character  and 
condition  of  the  folk  among  whom  Dr. 
Grenfell  labours. 

67 


68        DR.  GRENFELUS  PARISH 

"  As  a  permanent  abode  of  civilized  man," 
it  is  written  in  a  very  learned  if  somewhat 
old-fashioned  work,  "  Labrador  is,  on  the 
whole,  one  of  the  most  uninviting  spots  on 
the  face  of  the  earth."  That  is  putting  it 
altogether  too  delicately ;  there  should  be 
no  qualification ;  the  place  is  a  brutal  deso- 
lation. The  weather  has  scoured  the  coast 
— a  thousand  miles  of  it — as  clean  as  an  old 
bone :  it  is  utterly  sterile,  save  for  a  tuft  or 
two  of  hardy  grass  and  wide  patches  of  crisp 
moss;  bare  gray  rocks,  low  in  the  south, 
towering  and  craggy  in  the  north,  every- 
where blasted  by  frost,  lie  in  billowy  hills 
between  the  froth  and  clammy  mist  of  the 
sea  and  the  starved  forest  at  the  edge  of 
the  inland  wilderness.  The  interior  is  for- 
bidding ;  few  explorers  have  essayed  adven- 
ture there;  but  the  Indians — an  expiring 
tribe — and  trappers  who  have  caught  sight 
of  the  "  height  of  land  "  say  that  it  is  for 
the  most  part  a  vast  table-land,  barren, 
strewn  with  enormous  boulders,  scarce  in 
game,  swarming  with  flies,  with  vegetation 


THE  LIVEYERE  69 

surviving  only  in  the  hollows  and  ravines — 
a  sullen,  forsaken  waste. 

Those  who  dwell  on  the  coast  are  called 
"  liveyei'es  "  because  they  say,  "  Oh,  ay,  zur, 
I  lives  yere !  "  in  answer  to  the  question. 
Tliese  are  not  to  be  confounded  with  the 
Newfoundland  fishermen  who  sail  the  Lab- 
rador seas  in  the  fishing  season — an  adven- 
turous, thrifty  folk,  bright-eyed,  hearty  in 
laughter — twenty-five  thousand  hale  men 
and  boys,  with  many  a  wife  and  maid,  who 
come  and  return  again.  Less  than  four 
thousand  poor  folk  have  on  the  long  coast 
the  "  permanent  abode  "  of  which  the  learned 
work  speaks — much  less,  I  should  think, 
from  the  Strait  of  Belle  Isle  to  Cape  Chid- 
ley.  It  is  an  evil  fate  to  be  born  there :  the 
Newfoundlanders  who  went  north  from  their 
better  country,  the  Hudson  Bay  Company's 
servants  who  took  wives  from  the  natives, 
all  the  chance  comers  who  procrastinated 
their  escape,  desperately  wronged  their  pos- 
terity ;  the  saving  circumstance  is  the  very 
isolation   of    the  dweUing-place — no  man 


70        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

knows,  no  man  really  krhows,  that  elsewhere 
the  earth  is  kinder  to  her  children  and  fairer 
far  than  the  wind-swept,  barren  coast  to 
which  he  is  used.  They  live  content,  bear- 
ing many  children,  in  inclemency,  in  squalor, 
and,  from  time  to  time,  in  uttermost  poverty 
— such  poverty  as  clothes  a  child  in  a  trouser 
leg  and  feeds  babies  and  strong  men  alike 
on  nothing  but  flour  and  water.  They  were 
born  there  :  that  is  where  they  came  from  • 
that  is  why  they  live  there. 

"  'Tis  a  short  feast  and  a  long  famine," 
said  a  northern  "liveyere," quite  cheerfully; 
to  him  it  was  just  a  commonplace  fact  of 
life. 

There  are  degrees  of  wretchedness :  a 
frame  cottage  is  the  habitation  of  the  rich 
and  great  where  the  poor  live  in  turf  huts  ; 
and  the  poor  subsist  on  roots  and  a  paste  of 
flour  and  water  when  the  rich  feast  on  salt 
junk.  The  folk  who  live  near  the  Strait  of 
Belle  Isle  and  on  the  gulf  shore  may  be  in 
happielr  circamstances.    To  be  sure,  they 


THE  UVEYERE  71 

know  the  pinch  of  famine ;  but  some — the 
really  well-to-do— are  clear  of  the  over- 
shadowing dread  of  it.  The  "  liveyeres  "  of 
the  north  dwell  in  huts,  in  lonely  coves  of 
the  bays,  remote  even  from  neighbours  as 
ill-cased  as  themselves ;  there  they  live  and 
laugh  and  love  and  suffer  and  die  and  bury 
their  dead — alone.  To  the  south,  however, 
there  are  little  settlements  in  the  more 
sheltered  harbours — the  largest  of  not  more 
than  a  hundred  souls — where  there  is  a  de- 
gree of  prosperity  and  of  comfort ;  potatoes 
are  a  luxury,  but  the  flour-barrel  is  always 
full,  the  pork-barrel  not  always  empty,  and 
there  are  ♦  raisins  in  the  duflf  on  feast-days  ; 
moreover,  there  are  stoves  in  the  white- 
washed houses  (the  northern  "  liveyere's  " 
stove  is  more  often  than  not  a  flat  rock), 
beds  to  sleep  in,  muslin  curtains  in  the  little 
windows,  and  a  flower,  it  may  be,  sprouting 
desperately  in  a  red  pot  on  the  sill.  That 
is  the  extreme  of  luxury — rare  to  be  met 
with  ;  and  it  is  at  all  times  open  to  dissolu- 
tion by  famine. 


72        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

"Sure,  zur,  last  winter,"  a  stout  young 
fellow  boasted,  "  we  had  all  the  grease  us 
wanted ! " 

It  is  related  of  a  thrifty  settler  named 
Olliver,  however,  who  lived  with  his  wife 
and  five  children  at  Big  Bight, — he  was  a 
man  of  superior  qualities,  as  the  event 
makes  manifest, — that,  having  come  close 
to  the  pass  of  starvation  at  the  end  of  a 
long  winter,  he  set  out  afoot  over  the  hills 
to  seek  relief  from  his  nearest  neighbour, 
forty  miles  away.  But  there  was  no  relief 
to  be  had ;  the  good  neighbour  had  already 
given  away  all  that  he  dared  spare,  and 
something  more.  Twelve  miles  farther  on 
he  was  again  denied ;  it  is  said  that  the 
second  neighbour  mutely  pointed  to  his 
flour-barrel  and  his  family — which  was 
quite  sufficient  for  Olliver,  who  thereupon 
departed  to  a  third  house,  where  his  fortune 
was  no  better.  Perceiving  then  that  he 
must  depend  upon  the  store  of  food  in  his 
own  house,  which  was  insuificient  to  sup- 
port the  lives  of  all,  he  returned  home,  sent 


THE  LIVEYERE  78 

his  wife  and  eldest  son  and  eldest  daughter 
away  on  a  pretext,  despatched  his  three 
youngest  children  with  an  axe,  and  shot 
himself.  As  he  had  foreseen,  wife,  daugh- 
ter, and  son  survived  until  the  "  break-up  " 
brought  food  within  their  reach;  and  the 
son  was  a  well-grown  boy,  and  made  a 
capable  head  of  the  house  thereafter. 

The  "  liveyere  "  is  a  fisherman  and  trap- 
per. In  the  summer  he  catches  cod;  in 
the  winter  he  traps  the  fox,  otter,  mink, 
lynx,  and  marten,  and  sometimes  he  shoots 
a  bear,  white  or  black,  and  kills  a  wolf. 
The  "planter,"  who  advances  the  salt  to 
cure  the  fish,  takes  the  catch  at  the  end  of  the 
season,  giving  in  exchange  provisions  at  an 
incredible  profit ;  the  Hudson  Bay  Company 
takes  the  fur,  giving  in  exchange  provisions 
at  an  even  larger  profit ;  for  obvious  reasons, 
both  aim  (there  are  exceptions,  of  course)  to 
keep  the  "  liveyere  "  in  debt — which  is  not 
by  any  means  a  difficult  matter,  for  the 
"liveyere"  is  both  shiftless  and  (what  is 


74        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

more  to  the  point)  illiterate.  So  it  comes 
about  that  what  he  may  have  to  eat  and 
wear  depends  upon  the  will  of  the  "  planter" 
and  of  the  company ;  and  when  for  his  ill- 
luck  or  his  ill-will  both  cast  him  oflf — which 
sometimes  happens — he  looks  starvation  in 
the  very  face.  A  silver  fox,  of  good  fur  and 
acceptable  colour,  is  the  "  liveyere's  "  great 
catch;  no  doubt  his  most  ecstatic  night- 
mare has  to  do  with  finding  one  fast  in  his 
trap ;  but  when,  "  more  by  chance  than 
good  conduct,"  as  they  say,  he  has  that 
heavenly  fortune  (the  event  is  of  the 
rarest),  the  company  pays  sixty  or  eighty 
dollars  for  that  which  it  sells  abroad  for 
$600.  Of  late,  however,  the  free-traders 
seem  to  have  established  a  footing  on  the 
coast;  their  stay  may  not  be  long,  but  for 
the  moment,  at  any  rate,  the  "liveyere" 
may  dispose  of  his  fur  to  greater  advantage 
— if  he  dare. 

The  earth  yields  the  "  liveyere  "  nothing 
but  berries,  which  are  abundant,  and,  in 
midsummer,  "  turnip  tops  " ;  and  as  numer* 


THE  LIVEYERE  16 

ous  dogs  are  needed  for  winter  travelling — 
wolfish  creatures,  savage,  big,  famished — 
no  domestic  animals  can  be  kept.  There 
was  once  a  man  who  somehow  managed  for 
a  season  to  possess  a  pig  and  a  sheep ;  he 
marooned  his  dogs  on  an  island  half  a  mile 
off  the  coast;  unhappily,  however,  there 
blew  an  off-shore  wind  in  the  night,  and 
next  morning  neither  the  pig  nor  the  sheep 
was  to  be  found  ;  the  dogs  were  engaged  in 
innocent  diversions  on  the  island,  but  there 
was  evidence  sufficient  on  their  persons,  so 
to  speak,  to  convict  tbem  of  the  depreda- 
tion in  any  court  of  justice.  There  are  no 
cows  on  the  coast,  no  goats, — consequently 
no  additional  milk-supply  for  babies, — who 
manage  from  the  beginning,  however,  to 
thrive  on  bread  and  salt  beef,  if  put  to  the 
necessity.  There  are  no  pigs — there  is  one 
pig,  I  believe, — no  sheep,  no  chickens ;  and 
the  first  horses  to  be  taken  to  the  sawmill 
on  Hamilton  Inlet  so  frightened  the  natives 
that  they  scampered  in  every  direction  for 
their  lives  whenever  the  team  came  near, 


16       DR.  GRENFELL^S  PARISH 

crying :  "  Look  out !  The  harses  is  comin '  I " 
The  caribou  are  too  far  inland  for  most  of 
the  settlers ;  but  at  various  seasons  (exclud- 
ing such  times  as  there  is  no  game  at  all) 
there  are  to  be  had  grouse,  partridge,  geese, 
eider-duck,  puffin,  gulls,  loon  and  petrel, 
bear,  arctic  hare,  and  bay  seal,  which  are 
shot  with  marvellously  long  and  old  guns — 
some  of  them  ancient  flintlocks. 

Notwithstanding  all,  the  folk  are  large 
and  hardy — capable  of  withstanding  cruel 
hardship  and  deprivation. 

In  summer-time  the  weather  is  blistering 
hot  inland ;  and  on  the  coast  it  is  more  often 
than  not  wet,  foggy,  blustering — bitter 
enough  for  the  man  from  the  south,  who 
shivers  as  he  goes  about.  Innumerable  ice- 
bergs drift  southward,  scraping  the  coast  as 
they  go,  and  patches  of  snow  lie  in  the  hol- 
lows of  the  coast  hills — midway  between 
Battle  Harbour  and  Cape  Chidley  there  is  a 
low  headland  called  Snowy  Point  because 
the  snow  forever  lies  upon  it.  But  warm, 
sunny  days  are  to  be  counted  upon  in  August 


THE  LIVEYERE  77 

— days  when  the  sea  is  quiet,  the  sky  deep 
blue,  the  rocks  bathed  in  yellow  sunlight, 
the  air  clear  and  bracing ;  at  such  times  it 
is  good  to  lie  on  the  high  heads  and  look 
away  out  to  sea,  dreaming  the  while.  In 
winter,  storm  and  intense  cold  make  most 
of  the  coast  uninhabitable ;  the  "  liveyeres  " 
retire  up  the  bays  and  rivers,  bag  and  bag- 
gage, not  only  to  escape  the  winds  and  bit- 
ter cold,  but  to  be  nearer  the  supply  of  game 
and  fire-wood.  They  live  in  little  "  tilts  " — 
log  huts  of  one  large  square  room,  with 
"  bunks  "  at  each  end  for  the  women-folk, 
and  a  "cockloft"  above  for  the  men  and 
lads.  It  is  very  cold;  frost  forms  on  the 
walls,  icicles  under  the  "  bunks  " ;  the  ther- 
mometer frequently  falls  to  fifty  degrees  be- 
low zero,  which,  as  you  may  be  sure,  is  ex- 
ceedingly cold  near  the  sea.  Nor  can  a  man 
do  much  heavy  work  in  the  woods,  for  the 
perspiration  freezes  under  his  clothing.  Im- 
poverished families  have  no  stoves — merely 
an  arrangement  of  flat  stones,  with  an  open- 
ing in  the  roof  for  the  escape  of  the  smoke, 


7S        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

with  which  they  are  quite  content  if  only  they 
have  enough  flour  to  make  hard  bread  for  all. 
It  goes  without  saying  that  there  is  neither 
butcher,  baker,  nor  candlestick-maker  on  the 
coast.  Every  man  is  his  own  bootmaker, 
tailor,  and  what  not ;  there  is  not  a  trade  or 
profession  practiced  anywhere.  There  is  no 
resident  doctor,  save  the  mission  doctors,  one 
of  whom  is  established  at  Battle  Harbour,  and 
with  a  dog-team  makes  a  toilsome  journey 
up  the  coast  in  the  dead  of  winter,  relieving 
whom  he  can.  There  is  no  public  building, 
no  municipal  government,  no  road.  There  is 
no  lawyer,  no  constable ;  and  I  very  much 
doubt  that  there  is  a  parson  regularly  sta- 
tioned among  the  whites  beyond  Battle  Har- 
bour, with  the  exception  of  the  Moravian 
missionaries.  They  are  scarce  enough,  at  any 
rate,  for  the  folk  in  a  certain  practical  way  to 
feel  the  hardship  of  their  absence.  Dr.  Gren- 
fell  tells  of  landing  late  one  night  in  a  lonely 
harbour  where  three  "couples  wanted  marry- 
ing." They  had  waited  many  years  for  the 
opportunity.    It  chanced  that  the  doctor  was 


THE  LIVEYEEE  Y9 

entertaining  a  minister  on  the  cruise ;  so  one 
couple  determined  at  once  to  return  to  the 
ship  with  him.  "  The  minister,"  says  the 
doctor,  "  decided  that  pronouncing  the  banns 
might  be  dispensed  with  in  this  case.  He 
went  ahead  with  the  ceremony,  for  the 
couple  had  three  children  already  I " 

The  "  liveyere  "is  of  a  sombrely  relig- 
ious turn  of  mind — his  creed  as  harsh  and 
gloomy  as  the  land  he  lives  in ;  he  is  super- 
stitious as  a  savage  as  well,  and  an  incorri- 
gible fatalist,  all  of  which  is  not  hard  to 
account  for :  he  is  forever  in  the  midst  of 
vast  space  and  silence,  face  to  face  with 
dread  and  mysterious  forces,  and  in  conflict 
with  wind  and  sea  and  the  changing  season, 
which  are  irresistible  and  indifferent. 

Jared  was  young,  lusty,  light-hearted; 
but  he  lived  in  the  fear  and  dread  of  hell. 
I  had  known  that  for  two  days. 

"  The  flies,  zur,"  said  he  to  the  sportsman, 
whose  hospitality  I  was  enjoying,  "was 
wonderful  bad  the  day." 


80        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

We  were  twelve  miles  inland,  fishing  a 
small  stream;  and  we  were  now  in  the 
"  tilt,"  at  the  end  of  the  day,  safe  from  the 
swarming,  vicious  black-flies. 

"Yes,"  the  sportsman  replied,  emphatic- 
ally. "I've  suffered  the  tortures  of  the 
damned  this  day  ! " 

Jared  burst  into  a  roar  of  laughter — as 
sudden  and  violent  as  a  thunderclap. 

"What  you  laughing  at?"  the  sports- 
man demanded,  as  he  tenderly  stroked  his 
swollen  neck. 

"  Tartures  o'  the  damned ! "  Jared  gasped. 
"  Sure,  if  thafa  all  'tis,  I'll  jack  'asy  about 
it!" 

He  laughed  louder — reckless  levity;  but 
I  knew  that  deep  in  his  heart  he  would  be 
infinitely  relieved  could  he  believe — could 
he  only  make  sure — that  the  punishment  of 
the  wicked  was  no  worse  than  an  eternity 
of  fighting  with  poisonous  insects. 

"Ay,"  he  repeated,  ruefully,  "if  that's 
all  'twas,  'twould  not  trouble  me  much." 


THE  LIVEYERE  81 

The  graveyard  at  Battle  Harbour  is  in  a 
sheltered  hollow  near  the  sea.  It  is  a  green 
spot — the  one,  perhaps,  on  the  island — and 
they  have  enclosed  it  with  a  high  board 
fence.  Men  have  fished  from  that  harbour 
for  a  hundred  years  and  more — but  there 
are  not  many  graves ;  why,  I  do  not  know. 
The  crumbling  stones,  the  weather-beaten 
boards,  the  sprawling  ill- worded  inscrip- 
tions, are  all,  in  their  way,  eloquent : 


DIVJHE.  FQl^r^ 


"  8arah  Combe  died  the  fourth  of  Angast,  1881,  aged 
31  years. " 


82        DK.  GRENFELUS  PARISH' 

There  is  another,  better  carved,  somewhat 
better  spelled,  but  quite  as  interesting  and 
luminous : 

In 

Memory  of  John 

Hill  who  Died 

December  30  1890 

Aged  34 

Weep  not  dear  Parents 
For  your  lost  tis  my 
Etamel  gain  May 
May  Crist  you  alZ  take  up 
The  Croat  that  we 
Shuld  meat  again 

These  things  are,  indeed,  eloquent — of 
ignorance,  of  poverty;  but  no  less  elo- 
quent of  sorrow  and  of  love.  The  Lab- 
rador "liveyere"  is  kin  with  the  whole 
wide  world. 


VIII 
H^ITH  The  FLEET 

IN"  the  early  spring — when  the  sunlight 
is  yellow  and  the  warm  winds  blow 
and  the  melting  snow  drips  over' the 
cliffs  and  runs  in  little  rivulets  from  the 
barren  hills — in  the  thousand  harbours  of 
Newfoundland  the  great  fleet  is  made  ready 
for  the  long  adventure  upon  the  Labrador 
coast.  The  rocks  echo  the  noise  of  hammer 
and  saw  and  mallet  and  the  song  and  shout 
of  the  workers.  The  new  schooners — build- 
ing the  winter  long  at  the  harbour  side — 
are  hurried  to  completion.  The  old  craft — 
the  weather-beaten,  ragged  old  craft,  which, 
it  may  be,  have  dodged  the  reefs  and  out- 
lived the  gales  of  forty  seasons — are  fitted 
with  new  spars,  patched  with  new  canvas 
and  rope,  calked  anew,  daubed  anew  and, 
thus  refitted,  float  brave  enough  on  the 
quiet  harbour  water.  There  is  no  end  to 
83 


84        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

the  bustle  of  labour  on  ships  and  nets — no 
end  to  the  clatter  of  planning.  From,  the 
skipper  of  the  ten-ton  First  Venture,  who 
sails  with  a  crew  of  sons  bred  for  the  pur- 
pose, to  the  powerful  dealer  who  supplies  on 
shares  a  fleet  of  seventeen  fore-and-afters 
manned  from  the  harbours  of  a  great  bay, 
there  is  hope  in  the  hearts  of  all.  What- 
ever the  last  season,  every  man  is  to  make 
a  good  "  voyage  "  now.  This  season — this 
season — there  is  to  be  fish  a-plenty  on  the 
Labrador ! 

The  future  is  bright  as  the  new  spring 
days.  Aunt  Matilda  is  to  have  a  bonnet 
with  feathers — when  Skipper  Thomas  gets 
home  from  the  Labrador.  Little  Johnny 
Tatt,  he  of  the  crooked  back,  is  to  know 
again  the  virtue  of  Pike's  Pain  Compound, 
at  a  dollar  a  bottle,  warranted  to  cure — 
when  daddy  gets  home  from  the  Labrador. 
Skipper  Bill's  Lizzie,  plump,  blushing,  merry- 
eyed,  is  to  wed  Jack  Lute  o'  Burnt  Arm — 
when  Jack  comes  back  from  the  Labrador. 
Every  man's  heart,  and,  indeed,  most  men's 


WITH  THE  FLEET  86 

fortunes,  are  in  the  venture.  The  man  who 
has  nothing  has  yet  the  labour  of  his  hands. 
Be  he  skipper,  there  is  one  to  back  his  skill 
and  honesty ;  be  he  hand,  there  is  no  lack 
of  berths  to  choose  from.  Skippers  stand 
upon  their  record  and  schooners  upon  their 
reputation;  it's  take  your  choice,  for  the 
hands  are  not  too  many  :  the  skippers  are 
timid  or  bold,  as  God  made  them ;  the 
schooners  are  lucky  or  not,  as  Fate  deter- 
mines. Every  man  has  his  chance.  John 
Smith  o'  Twillingate  provisions  the  Lucky 
Queen  and  gives  her  to  the  penniless  Skip- 
per Jim  o'  Yellow  Tickle  on  shares.  Old 
Tom  Tatter  o'  Salmon  Cove,  with  plea  and 
argument,  persuades  the  Four  Arms  trader 
to  trust  him  once  again  with  the  Busy  Bee. 
He'll  get  the  fish  this  time.  Nar  a  doubt 
of  it !  HeHl  be  home  in  August — this  year 
— loaded  to  the  gunwale.  God  knows  who 
pays  the  cash  when  the  fish  fail!  God 
knows  how  the  folk  survive  the  disap- 
pointment! It  is  a  great  lottery  of  hope 
and  fortune. 


86        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

When,  at  last,  word  comes  south  that  the 
ice  is  clearing  from  the  coast,  the  vessels 
spread  their  little  wings  to  the  first  favour- 
ing winds ;  and  in  a  week — two  weeks  or 
three — the  last  of  the  Labradormen  have 
gone  "  down  north." 

Dr.  Grenfell  and  his  workers  find  much 
to  do  among  these  men  and  women  and 
children. 

At  Indian  Harbour  where  the  Strathcona 
lay  at  anchor,  I  went  aboard  the  schooner 
Jolly  Crew.  It  was  a  raw,  foggy  day,  with 
a  fresh  northeast  gale  blowing,  and  a  high 
sea  running  outside  the  harbour.  They 
were  splitting  fish  on  deck;  the  skiff  was 
just  in  from  the  trap — ^she  was  still  wet 
with  spray. 

"  I  sails  with  me  sons  an'  gran'sons,  zur," 
said  the  skipper,  smiling.  "  Sure,  I  be  a  old 
feller  t'  be  down  the  Labrador,  isn't  I,  zur  ?  " 

He  did  not  mean  that.  He  was  proud  of 
his  age  and  strength — glad  that  he  was  still 
able  "f  be  at  the  fishin'." 


lAlllsK.   .\^i 


WITH  THE  FLEET  87 

"'Tis  a  wonder  you've  lived  through  it 
all,"  said  I. 

He  laughed.     "  An'  why,  zur  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Many's  the  ship  wrecked  on  this  coast," 
I  answered. 

"Oh  no,  zur,"  said  he;  "not  so  many, 
zur,  as  you  might  think.  Down  this  way, 
zur,  we  knows  how  ^  sail  !  " 

That  was  a  succinct  explanation  of  very 
much  that  had  puzzled  me. 

"Ah,  weU,"  said  I,  "  'tis  a  hard  life." 

"  Hard  ?  "  he  asked,  doubtfully. 

"Yes,"  I  answered;  "'tis  a  hard  life — 
the  fishin'." 

"Oh  no,  zur,"  said  he,  quietly,  looking 
up  from  his  work.     "  'Tis  just — just  life  !  " 

They  do,  indeed,  know  how  "f  sail." 
The  Newfoundland  government,  niggardly 
and  utterly  independable  when  the  good  of 
the  fisherfolk  is  concerned,  of  whatever  com- 
plexion the  government  may  chance  to  be, 
but  prodigal  to  an  extraordinary  degree 
when  individual  self-interests  are  at  stake— 


8S        DR.  GRENFELL^S  PARISH 

this  is  a  delicate  way  of  putting  an  unpleas- 
ant truth, — keeps  no  light  burning  beyond 
the  Strait  of  Belle  Isle ;  the  best  it  does,  I 
believe,  is  to  give  wrecked  seamen  free  pas- 
sage home.  Under  these  difficult  circum- 
stances, no  seamen  save  Newfoundlanders, 
who  are  the  most  skillful  and  courageous  of 
all,  could  sail  that  coast :  and  they  only  be- 
cause they  are  born  to  follow  the  sea — there 
is  no  escape  for  them — and  are  bred  to  sail- 
ing from  their  earliest  years. 

"  "What  you  going  to  be  when  you  grow 
up  ?  "  I  once  asked  a  lad  on  the  far  north- 
east coast. 

He  looked  at  me  in  vast  astonishment. 

"  What  you  going  to  5«,  what  you  going 
to  <:?o,"  I  repeated,  "  when  you  grow  up  ?  " 

Still  he  did  not  comprehend.  "  Eh  ?  "  he 
said. 

"  What  you  going  to  work  at,"  said  I,  in 
desperation,  "  when  you're  a  man  ?  " 

"  Oh,  zur,"  he  answered,  understanding  at 
last,  "  I  isn't  clever  enough  t'  be  a  parson ! " 

And  so  it  went  without  saying  that  he 


WITH  THE  FLEET  89 

was  to  fish  for  a  living !  It  is  no  wonder, 
then,  that  the  skippers  of  the  fleet  know 
"  how  t'  sail."  The  remarkable  quality  of 
the  sea-captains  who  come  from  among  them 
impressively  attests  the  fact — not  only  their 
quality  as  sailors,  but  as  men  of  spirit  and 
proud  courage.  There  is  one — now  a  cap- 
tain of  a  coastal  boat  on  the  Newfoundland 
shore — who  takes  his  steamer  into  a  ticklish 
harbour  of  a  thick,  dark  night,  when  every- 
thing is  black  ahead  and  roundabout,  steer- 
ing only  by  the  echo  of  the  ship's  whistle  1 
There  is  another,  a  confident  seaman,  a 
bluff,  high-spirited  fellow,  who  was  once  de- 
layed by  bitter  winter  weather — an  inky 
night,  with  ice  about,  the  snow  flying,  the 
seasheavy  with  frost, the  wind  blowingagale. 

"  Where  have  you  been  ?  "  they  asked  him, 
sarcastically,  from  the  head  office. 

The  captain  had  been  on  the  bridge  all 
night. 

"  Berry-picking,"  was  his  laconic  despatch 
in  reply. 

There  is  another — also  the  captain  of  a 


90        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

coastal  steamer — who  thought  it  wise  to  lie 
in  harbour  through  a  stormy  night  in  the 
early  winter. 

"What  detains  you?"  came  a  message 
from  the  head  oflBce. 

"  It  is  not  a  fit  night  for  a  vessel  to  be  at 
sea,"  the  captain  replied ;  and  thereupon  he 
turned  in,  believing  the  matter  to  be  at  an  end. 

The  captain  had  been  concerned  for  his 
vessel — not  for  his  life ;  nor  yet  for  his  com- 
fort. But  the  underling  at  the  head  office 
misinterpreted  the  message. 

"What  do  we  pay  you  for?"  he  tele- 
graphed. 

So  the  captain  took  the  ship  out  to  sea. 
Men  say  that  she  went  out  of  commission 
the  next  day,  and  that  it  cost  the  company 
a  thousand  dollars  to  refit  her. 

"  A  dunderhead,"  say  the  folk,  "  can  cotch 
fish ;  but  it  takes  a  man  t'  find  un."  It  is  a 
chase ;  and,  as  the  coast  proverb  has  it,  "  the 
fish  have  no  bells."  It  is  estimated  that 
there  are  7,000  square  miles  of  fishing-banks 


WITH  THE  FLEET  91 

off  the  Labrador  coast.  There  will  be  iish 
somewhere — not  everywhere ;  not  every  man 
will  "  use  his  salt "  (the  schooners  go  north 
loaded  with  salt  for  curing)  or  "get  his  load." 
In  the  beginning — this  is  when  the  ice  first 
clears  away — there  is  a  race  for  berths.  It 
takes  clever,  reckless  sailing  and  alert  action 
to  secure  the  best.  I  am  reminded  of  a 
skipper  who  by  hard  driving  to  windward 
and  good  luck  came  first  of  all  to  a  favoura- 
ble harbour.  It  was  then  night,  and  his 
crew  was  weary,  so  he  put  off  running  out 
his  trap-leader  until  morning ;  but  in  the 
night  the  wind  changed,  and  when  he  awoke 
at  dawn  there  were  two  other  schooners 
lying  quietly  at  anchor  near  by  and  the 
berths  had  been  "  staked."  When  the  traps 
are  down,  there  follows  a  period  of  anxious 
waiting.  Where  are  the  fish  ?  There  are 
no  telegraph-lines  on  that  coast.  The  news 
must  be  spread  by  word  of  mouth.  When, 
at  last,  it  comes,  there  is  a  sudden  change 
of  plan — a  wild  rush  to  the  more  favoured 
grounds, 


92        DK.  GRENFELL'S  PAEISH 

It  is  in  this  scramble  that  many  a  skipper 
makes  his  great  mistake.  I  was  talking 
with  a  disconsolate  young  fellow  in  a  north- 
ern harbour  where  the  fish  were  running 
thick.  The  schooners  were  fast  loading ; 
but  he  had  no  berth,  and  was  doing  but 
poorly  with  the  passing  days. 

"  If  I  hadn't — if  I  only  hadn't — took  up 
me  trap  when  I  did,"  said  he,  "  I'd  been 
loaded  an'  off  home.  Sure,  zur,  would  you 
believe  it  ?  but  I  had  the  berth  off  the  point. 
Off  the  point — the  berth  off  the  point ! "  he 
repeated,  earnestly,  his  eyes  wide.  "An', 
look  I  I  hears  they's  a  great  run  o'  fish  t' 
Cutthroat  Tickle.  So  I  up  with  me  trap,  for 
I'd  been  gettin'  nothin' ;  an' — an' — would  you 
believe  it  ?  but  the  man  that  put  his  down 
where  I  took  mine  up  took  a  hundred 
quintal^  out  o'  that  berth  next  marnin'! 
An'  he'll  load,"  he  groaned,  "afore  the 
week's  out ! " 


'  A  quintal  is,  roughly,  a  hundred  iwunds.  One  hun- 
dred quintals  of  green  fish  are  equal,  roughly,  to  thirty 
of  dry,  which,  at  $3,  would  amount  to  $90. 


WITH  THE  FLEET  93 

When  the  fish  are  running,  the  work  is 
mercilessly  hard ;  it  is  kept  up  night  and 
day ;  there  is  no  sleep  for  man  or  child, 
save,  it  may  be,  an  hour's  slumber  where 
they  toil,  just  before  dawn.  The  schooner 
lies  at  anchor  in  the  harbour,  safe  enough 
from  wind  and  sea ;  the  rocks,  surrounding 
the  basin  in  which  she  lies,  keep  the  har- 
bour water  placid  forever.  But  the  men  set 
the  traps  in  the  open  sea,  somewhere  off  the 
heads,  or  near  one  of  the  outlying  islands ; 
it  may  be  miles  from  the  anchorage  of  the 
schooner.  They  put  out  at  dawn — before 
dawn,  rather ;  for  they  aim  to  be  at  the  trap 
just  when  the  light  is  strong  enough  for  the 
hauling.  When  the  skiff  is  loaded,  they  put 
back  to  harbour  in  haste,  throw  the  fish  on 
deck,  split  them,  salt  them,  lay  them  neatly 
in  the  hold,  and  put  out  to  the  trap  again. 
I  have  seen  the  harbours — then  crowded 
with  fishing-craft — fairly  ablaze  with  light 
at  midnight.  Torches  were  flaring  on  the 
decks  and  in  the  turf  hut  on  the  rocks 
ashore.    The  night  was  quiet;  there  was 


94        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

not  a  sound  from  the  tired  workers ;  but  the 
flaring  lights  made  known  that  the  wild, 
bleak,  far-away  place — a  basin  in  the  midst 
of  barren,  uninhabited  hills — was  still  astir 
with  the  day's  work. 

At  such  times,  the  toil  at  the  oars,  and  at 
the  splitting-table,^  whether  on  deck  or  in 
the  stages — and  the  lack  of  sleep,  and  the 
icy  winds  and  cold  salt  spray — is  all  bitter 
cruel  to  suffer.  The  Labrador  fisherman 
will  not  readily  admit  that  he  lives  a  hard 
life ;  but  if  you  suggest  that  when  the  fish 
are  running  it  may  be  somewhat  more  toil- 
some than  lives  lived  elsewhere,  he  will 
grant  you  something. 

"  Oh,  ay,"  he'll  drawl,  "  when  the  fish  is 
runnin',  His  a  bit  hard." 

I  learned  from  a  child — he  was  merry, 
brave,  fond  of  the  adventure — j^hat  fishing 
is  a  pleasant  business  in  the  sunny  midsum- 
mer months ;  but  that  when,  late  in  the  fall, 
the  skiff  puts  out  to  the  trap  at  dawn,  it  is 

1  A  "clever  hand"  can  split— that  Is,  clean— thirty 
fish  in  a  minute. 


WITH  THE  FLEET  95 

wise  to  plunge  one's  hands  deep  in  the 
water  before  taking  the  oars,  no  matter 
how  much  it  hurts,  for  one's  wrists  are  then 
covered  with  salt-water  sores  and  one's 
palms  are  cracked,  even  though  one  take 
the  precaution  of  wearing  a  brass  chain — 
that,  oh,  yes !  it  is  wise  to  plunge  one's 
hands  in  the  cold  water,  as  quick  as  may 
be;  for  thus  one  may  "limber  'em  up"  be- 
fore the  trap  is  reached. 

"'Tis  not  hard,  now,"  said  he.  "But, 
oh — 00 — 00 !  when  the  big  nor'easters  blow! 
Oo — oo ! "  he  repeated,  with  a  shrug  and  a 
sage  shake  of  the  head;  "'tis  won-der-ful 
hard  those  times ! " 

The  return  is  small.  The  crews  are  com- 
prised of  from  five  to  ten  men,  with,  occa- 
sionally, a  sturdy  maid  for  cook,  to  whom 
is  given  thirty  dollars  for  her  season's  work ; 
some  old  hands  will  sail  on  no  ship  with  a 
male  cook,  for,  as  one  of  them  said,  "  Sure, 
some  o'  thim  min  can't  boil  water  without 
burnin'  it ! "  A  good  season's  catch  is  one 
hundred  quintals  of  dry  fish  a  man.    A 


96        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

simple  calculation — with  some  knowledge 
of  certain  factors  which  I  need  not  state — 
makes  it  plain  that  a  man  must  himself 
catch,  as  his  share  of  the  trap,  30,000  fish  if 
he  is  to  net  a  living  wage.  If  his  return  is 
$250  he  is  in  the  happiest  fortune — richly 
rewarded,  beyond  his  dreams,  for  his  sum- 
mer's work.  One-half  of  that  is  sufficient 
to  give  any  modest  man  a  warm  glow  of 
content  and  pride.  Often — it  depends 
largely  upon  chance  and  the  skill  of  his 
skipper — the  catch  is  so  poor  that  he  must 
make  the  best  of  twenty-five  or  thirty 
dollars.  It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the 
return  is  always  in  cash;  it  is  usually  in 
trade,  which  is  quite  a  different  thing — in 
Newfoundland. 

The  schooners  take  many  passengers 
north  in  the  spring.  Such  are  called 
"freighters"  on  the  coast;  they  are  put 
ashore  at  such  harbours  as  they  elect,  and, 
for  passage  for  themselves,  families,  and 


WITH  THE  FLEET  97 

gear,  pay  upon  the  return  voyage  twenty- 
five  cents  for  every  hundredweight  of  fish 
caught.  As  a  matter  of  course,  the  vessels 
are  preposterously  overcrowded.  Dr.  Gren- 
fell  tells  of  counting  thirty-four  men  and 
sixteen  women  (no  mention  was  made  of 
children)  aboard  a  nineteen-ton  schooner, 
then  on  the  long,  rough  voyage  to  the  north. 
The  men  fish  from  the  coast  in  small  boats 
just  as  the  more  prosperous  "green-fish 
catchers"  put  out  from  the  schooners. 
Meantime,  they  live  in  mud  huts,  which 
are  inviting  or  otherwise,  as  the  women- 
folk go;  some  are  damp,  cave-like,  iU- 
savoured,  crowded;  others  are  airy,  cozy, 
the  floors  spread  deep  with  powdered  shell, 
the  whole  immaculately  kept.  "When  the 
party  is  landed,  the  women  sweep  out  the 
last  of  the  winter's  snow,  the  men  build 
great  fires  on  the  floors;  indeed,  the  huts 
are  soon  ready  for  occupancy.  At  best, 
they  are  tiny  places — much  like  children's 
playhouses.    There  was  once  a  tall  man 


98        DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

who  did  not  quite  fit  the  sleeping  place  as- 
signed to  him ;  but  with  great  good  nature 
he  cut  a  hole  in  the  wall,  built  a  miniature 
addition  for  his  feet,  and  slept  the  summer 
through  at  comfortable  full  length.  It  is  a 
great  outing  for  the  children ;  they  romp 
on  the  rocks,  toddle  over  the  nearer  hills, 
sleep  in  the  sunshine ;  but  if  they  are  eight 
years  old,  as  one  said — or  well  grown  at 
five  or  seven — they  must  do  their  little 
share  of  work. 

Withal,  the  Labradormen  are  of  a  simple, 
God-fearing,  clean-lived,  hardy  race  of  men. 
There  was  once  a  woman  who  made  boast 
of  her  high  connection  in  England,  as 
women  will  the  wide  world  over ;  and  when 
she  was  questioned  concerning  the  position 
the  boasted  relative  occupied,  replied,  "  Oh, 
Ae'«  Superintendent  o'  Foreign  Govern- 
ments 1 "  There  was  an  austere  old  Chris- 
tian who  on  a  Sunday  morning  left  his  trap 
— ^his  whole  fortune — ^lie  in  the  path  of  a 


WITH  THE  FLEET  99 

destroying  iceberg  rather  than  desecrate 
the  Lord's  day  by  taking  it  out  of  the 
water.  Both  political  parties  in  New- 
foundland shamelessly  deceive  the  credu- 
lous fisherfolk;  there  was  a  childlike  old 
fellow  who,  when  asked,  "And  what  will 
you  do  if  there  is  no  fish?"  confidently 
answered:  "Oh,  they's  goin'  t'  be  a  new 
Gov'ment.  He'll  take  care  o'  we ! "  There 
was  a  sturdy  son  of  the  coast  who  deserted 
his  schooner  at  sea  and  swam  ashore.  But 
he  had  mistaken  a  barren  island  for  the  main- 
land, which  was  yet  far  off ;  and  there  he 
lived,  without  food,  for  twenty-seven  days  I 
"When  he  was  picked  up,  his  condition  was 
such  as  may  not  be  described  (the  Labrador 
fly  is  a  vicious  insect) ;  he  was  unconscious, 
but  he  survived  to  fish  many  another 
season. 

The  mail-boat  picked  up  Skipper  Thomas 
of  Carbonear — then  master  of  a  loaded 
schooner — at    a   small   harbour   near  the 


100      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

Straits.  His  crew  carried  him  aboard; 
for  he  was  desperately  ill,  and  wanted  to 
die  at  home,  where  his  children  were. 

"He's  wonderful  bad,"  said  one  of  the 
men.     "  He've  consumption." 

"  I'm  just  wantin'  t'  die  at  home,"  he  said, 
again  and  again.  "Just  that — ^just  where 
my  children  be  !  " 

All  hearts  were  with  him  in  that  last 
struggle — but  no  man  dared  hope ;  for  the 
old  skipper  had  already  beaten  off  death 
longer  than  death  is  wont  to  wait,  and  his 
strength  was  near  spent. 

"  "Were  you  sick  when  you  sailed  for  the 
Labrador  in  the  spring  ?  "  they  asked  him. 

" Oh,  ay,"  said  he ;  "I  were  terrible  bad 
then." 

"  Then  why,"  they  said — "  why  did  you 
come  at  all  ?  " 

They  say  he  looked  up  in  mild  surprise. 
"I  had  t'  make  me  livin',"  he  answered, 
simply. 

BHs  coffin  was  knocked  together  on  the 


WITH  THE  FLEET  101 

forward  deck  next  morning — with  Carbo- 
near  a  day's  sail  beyond. 

The  fleet  goes  home  in  the  early  fall. 
The  schooners  are  loaded — some  so  low  with 
the  catch  that  the  water  washes  into  the 
scuppers.  "  You  could  wash  your  hands  on 
her  deck,"  is  the  skipper's  proudest  boast. 
The  feat  of  seamanship,  I  do  not  doubt,  is 
not  elsewhere  equalled.  It  is  an  inspiring 
sight  to  see  the  doughty  little  craft  beating 
into  the  wind  on  a  gray  day.  The  harvest- 
ing of  a  field  of  grain  is  good  to  look  upon ; 
but  I  think  that  there  can  be  no  more  stir- 
ring sight  in  all  the  world,  no  sight  more 
quickly  to  melt  a  man's  heart,  more  deeply 
to  move  him  to  love  men  and  bless  God, 
than  the  sight  of  the  Labrador  fleet  beating 
home  loaded — toil  done,  dangers  past ;  the 
home  port  at  the  end  of  a  run  with  a  fair 
wind.  The  home-coming,  I  fancy,  is  much 
like  the  return  of  the  viking  ships  to  the  old 
Norwegian  harbours  must  have  been.  The 
lucky  skippers  strut  the  village  roads  with 


102      DE.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

swelling  chests,  heroes  in  the  sight  of  all ; 
the  old  men,  long  past  their  labour,  listen  to 
new  tales  and  spin  old  yarns ;  the  maids  and 
the  lads  renew  their  interrupted  love-mak- 
ings. There  is  great  rejoicing — feasting, 
merrymaking,  hearty  thanksgiving. 
Thanks  be  to  God,  the  fleet's  home  I 


IX 

On  The  FRENCH  SHORB 

DOCTOK  GKENFELL  appears  to 
have  a  peculiar  affection  for  the 
outporters  of  what  is  locally  known 
as  the  "French  Shore" — that  stretch  of 
coast  lying  between  Cape  John  and  the 
northernmost  point  of  Newfoundland :  it  is 
one  section  of  the  shore  upon  which  the 
French  have  fishing  rights.  This  is  the  real 
Newfoundland;  to  the  writer  there  is  no 
Newfoundland  apart  from  that  long  strip  of 
rock  against  which  the  sea  forever  breaks : 
none  that  is  not  of  punt,  of  wave,  of  fish, 
of  low  sky  and  of  a  stalwart,  briny  folk. 
Indeed,  though  he  has  joyously  lived  weeks 
of  blue  weather  in  the  outports,  with  the 
sea  all  a-ripple  and  flashing  and  the  breeze 
blowing  warm,  in  retrospect  land  and  peo- 
ple resolve  themselves  into  a  rocky  harbour 
and  a  sturdy  little  lad  with  a  question — the 
harbour,  gray  and  dripping  wet,  a  cluster  of 

whitewashed  cottages  perched  on  the  rocks, 
103 


104      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

towards  which  a  tiny,  red-sailed  punt  is 
beating  from  the  frothy  open,  with  the  white 
of  breakers  on  either  hand,  while  a  raw 
wind  lifts  the  fog  from  the  black  inland 
hills,  upon  which  ragged  patches  of  snow 
lie  melting ;  the  lad,  stout,  frank-eyed,  tow- 
headed,  browned  by  the  wind,  bending  over 
the  splitting-table  with  a  knife  in  his  toil- 
worn  young  hand  and  the  blood  of  cod 
dripping  from  his  fingers,  and  looking  wist- 
fully up,  at  last,  to  ask  a  question  or  two 
concerning  certain  old,  disquieting  mysteries. 
"  Where  do  the  tide  go,  zur,  when  'e  runs 
out  ?  "  he  plainted.  "  Where  do  'e  go,  zur  ? 
Sure,  zur,  you  is  able  t'  tell  me  that,  isn't 
you?" 

So,  in  such  a  land — where,  on  some  bleak 
stretches  of  coast,  the  potatoes  are  grown  in 
imported  English  soil,  where  most  gardens, 
and  some  graveyards,  are  made  of  earth 
scraped  from  the  hollows  of  the  hills,  where 
four  hundred  and  nineteen  bushels  of  lean 
wheat  are  grown  in  a  single  year,  and  the 


ON  THE  FRENCH  SHORE      105 

production  of  beef -cattle  is  insignificant  as 
compared  with  the  production  of  babies — in 
such  a  land  there  is  nothing  for  the  young 
man  to  do  but  choose  his  rock,  build  his  lit- 
tle cottage  and  his  flake  and  his  stage, 
marry  a  maid  of  the  harbour  when  the  spring 
winds  stir  his  blood,  gather  his  potato  patch, 
get  a  pig  and  a  goat,  and  go  fishing  in  his 
punt.  And  they  do  fish,  have  always  fished 
since  many  generations  ago  the  island  was 
first  settled  by  adventurous  Devon  men,  and 
must  continue  to  fish  to  the  end  of  time. 
Out  of  a  total  male  population  of  one  hun- 
dred thousand,  which  includes  the  city-folk 
of  St.  Johns  and  an  amazing  proportion  of 
babies  and  tender  lads,  about  fifty-five  thou- 
sand men  and  grown  boys  catch  fish  for  a 
living. 

"Still  an'  all,  they's  no  country  in  the 
world  like  this ! "  said  the  old  skipper. 
"  Sure,  a  man's  set  up  in  life  when  he  haves 
a  pig  an'  a  punt  an'  a  potato  patch." 

"  But  have  you  ever  seen  another  ? "  I 
asked. 


106      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

"  I've  been  so  far  as  Saint  Johns,  zur,  an' 
once  t'  the  waterside  o'  Boston,"  was  the 
surprising  reply,  "  an'  I'm  thinkin'  I  knows 
what  the  world's  like." 

So  it  is  with  most  Newfoundlanders :  they 
love  their  land  with  an  intolerant  preju- 
dice ;  and  most  are  content  with  the  life  they 
lead.  "  The  Newfoundlander  comes  back," 
is  a  significant  proverb  of  the  outports ;  and, 
"  White  Bay's  good  enough  for  me,"  said  a 
fishwife  to  me  once,  when  I  asked  her  why- 
she  still  remained  in  a  place  so  bleak  and 
barren,  "  for  I've  heered  tell  'tis  wonderful 
smoky  an'  n'isy  't  Saint  Johns."  The  life 
they  live,  and  strangely  love,  is  exceeding 
toilsome.  Toil  began  for  a  gray-haired, 
bony-handed  old  woman  whom  I  know  when 
she  was  so  young  that  she  had  to  stand  on 
a  tub  to  reach  the  splitting-table ;  when,  too, 
to  keep  her  awake  and  busy,  late  o'  nights, 
her  father  would  make  believe  to  throw  a 
bloody  cod's  head  at  her.  It  began  for  that 
woman's  son  when,  at  five  or  six  years  old, 
he  was  just  able  to  spread  the  fish  to  dry  on 


ON  THE  FRENCH  SHORE      107 

the  flake,  and  continued  in  earnest,  a  year 
or  two  later,  when  first  he  was  strong 
enough  to  keep  the  head  of  his  father's  punt 
up  to  the  wind.  But  they  seem  not  to  know 
that  fishing  is  a  hard  or  dangerous  employ- 
ment: for  instance,  a  mild-eyed,  crooked 
old  fellow — he  was  a  cheerful  Methodist, 
too,  and  subject  to  "  glory-fits  " — who  had 
fished  from  one  harbour  for  sixty  years,  com- 
puted for  me  that  he  had  put  out  to  sea  in 
his  punt  at  least  twenty  thousand  times,  that 
he  had  been  frozen  to  the  seat  of  his  punt 
many  times,  that  he  had  been  swept  to  sea 
with  the  ice  packs,  six  times,  that  he  had 
weathered  six  hundred  gales,  great  and 
small,  and  that  he  had  been  wrecked  more 
times  than  he  could  "  just  mind  "  at  the  mo- 
ment ;  yet  he  was  the  only  old  man  ever  I 
met  who  seemed  honestly  to  wish  that  he 
might  live  his  life  over  again  I 

The  hook-and-line  man  has  a  lonely  time 
of  it.  From  earliest  dawn,  while  the  night 
yet  lies  thick  on  the  sea,  until  in  storm  or 
calm  or  favouring  breeze  he  makes  harbour 


108      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

in  the  dusk,  he  lies  off  shore,  fishing — toss- 
ing in  the  lop  of  the  grounds,  with  the 
waves  to  balk  and  the  wind  to  watch  warily, 
while  he  tends  his  lines.  There  is  no  jolly 
companionship  of  the  forecastle  and  turf  hut 
for  him — no  new  scene,  no  hilarious  adven- 
ture ;  nor  has  he  the  expectation  of  a  proud  re- 
turn to  lighten  his  toil.  In  the  little  punt 
he  has  made  with  his  own  hands  he  is  for- 
ever riding  an  infinite  expanse,  which,  in 
"  fish  weather,"  is  melancholy,  or  threaten- 
ing, or  deeply  solemn,  as  it  may  chance — all 
the  while  and  all  alone  confronting  the 
mystery  and  terrible  immensity  of  the  sea. 
It  may  be  that  he  gives  himself  over  to  aim- 
less musing,  or,  even  less  happily,  to  ponder- 
ing certain  dark  mysteries  of  the  soul ;  and 
so  it  comes  about  that  the  "mad-house  't 
Saint  Johns"  is  inadequate  to  accommo- 
date the  poor  fellows  whom  lonely  toil  has 
bereft  of  their  senses — melancholiacs,  idiots 
and  maniacs  "along  o'  religion." 

Notwithstanding    all,   optimism   persists 
everywhere  on  the  coast.    One  old  fisher- 


ON  THE  FRENCH  SHORE      109 

man  counted  himself  favoured  above  most 
men  because  he  had  for  years  been  able  to 
afford  the  luxury  of  cream  of  tartar;  and 
another,  a  brawny  giant,  confessed  to  hav- 
ing a  disposition  so  pertinaciously  happy 
that  he  had  come  to  regard  a  merry  heart  as 
his  besetting  sin.  Sometimes  an  off-shore 
gale  puts  an  end  to  all  the  fishing ;  some- 
times it  is  a  sudden  gust,  sometimes  a  big 
wave,  sometimes  a  confusing  mist,  more 
often  long  exposure  to  spray  and  shipped 
water  and  soggy  winds.  It  was  a  sleety 
off-shore  gale,  coming  at  the  end  of  a  sunny, 
windless  day,  that  froze  or  drowned  thirty 
men  off  Trinity  Bay  in  a  single  night ;  and 
it  was  a  mere  puff  on  a  "  civil "  evening — 
but  a  swift,  wicked  little  puff,  sweeping 
round  Breakheart  Head  —  that  made  a 
widow  of  Elizabeth  Rideout  o'  Duck  Cove 
and  took  her  young  son  away.  Often,  how- 
ever, the  hook-and-line  man  fishes  his  eighty 
years  of  life,  and  dies  in  his  bed  as  cheer- 
fully as  he  has  lived  and  as  poor  as  he  was 
born. 


SOME  OUTPORT  FOLK 

IT  had  been  a  race  against  the  peril  of 
fog  and  the  discomfort  of  a  wet  night 
all  the  way  from  Hooping  Harbour. 
We  escaped  the  scowl  of  the  northeast,  the 
gray,  bitter  wind  and  the  sea  it  was  fast 
fretting  to  a  fury,  when  the  boat  rounded 
Canada  Head  and  ran  into  the  shelter  of  the 
bluffs  at  Englee — into  the  damp  shadows 
sombrely  gathered  there.  "When  the  punt 
was  moored  to  the  stage-head,  the  fog  had 
thickened  the  dusk  into  deep  night,  and  the 
rain  had  soaked  us  to  the  skin.  There  was 
a  light,  a  warm,  yellow  light,  shining  from 
a  window,  up  along  shore  and  to  the  west. 
We  stumbled  over  an  erratic  footpath,  which 
the  folk  of  the  place  call  "  the  roaad  " — feel- 
ing for  direction,  chancing  the  steps,  splash- 
ing through  pools  of  water,  tripping  over 
sharp  rocks.     The  whitewashed  cottages  of 

the  village,  set  on  the  hills,  were  like  the 
110 


'THE  WHITEWASHED  COTTAGES  ON  THE  HILLS" 


SOME  OUTPORT  FOLK         111 

ghosts  of  houses.  They  started  into  sight, 
hung  suspended  in  the  night,  vanished  as  we 
trudged  on.  The  folk  were  all  abed — all 
save  Elisha  Duckworthy,  that  pious  giant, 
who  had  been  late  beating  in  from  the  fish- 
ing grounds  off  the  Head.  It  was  Elisha 
who  opened  the  door  to  our  knock,  and  sent 
a  growling,  bristling  dog  back  to  his  place 
with  a  gentle  word. 

"Will  you  not " 

"  Sure,  sir,"  said  Elisha,  a  smile  spreading 
from  his  eyes  to  the  very  tip  of  his  great 
beard,  "  'twould  be  a  hard  man  an'  a  bad 
Christian  that  would  turn  strangers  away. 
Come  in,  sir !  'Tis  a  full  belly  you'll  have 
when  you  leaves  the  table,  an'  'tis  a  warm 
bed  you'll  sleep  in,  this  night." 

After  family  prayers,  in  which  we,  the 
strangers  he  had  taken  in,  were  commended 
to  the  care  and  mercy  of  God  in  such  simple, 
feeling  phrases  as  proved  the  fine  quality  of 
this  man's  hospitality  and  touched  our  hearts 
in  their  innermost  parts,  Elisha  invited  us  to 
sit  by  the  kitchen  fire  with  him  "for  a 


112      DE.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

spell."  While  the  dogs  snored  in  chorus 
with  a  young  kid  and  a  pig  by  the  roaring 
stove,  and  the  chickens  rustled  and  clucked 
in  their  coop  under  the  bare  spruce  sofa 
which  Elisha  had  made,  and  the  wind  flung 
the  rain  against  the  window-panes,  we  three 
talked  of  weather  and  fish  and  toil  and  peril 
and  death.  It  may  be  that  a  cruel  coast 
and  a  sea  quick  to  wrath  engender  a  certain 
dread  curiosity  concerning  the  "  taking  off  " 
in  a  man  who  fights  day  by  day  to  survive 
the  enmity  of  both.  Elisha  talked  for  a 
long  time  of  death  and  heaven  and  heU. 
Then,  solemnly,  his  voice  fallen  to  a  whisper, 
he  told  of  his  father,  Skipper  George,  a  man 
of  weakling  faith,  who  had  been  reduced  to 
idiocy  by  wondering  what  came  after  death 
— by  wondering,  wondering,  wondering,  in 
sunlight  and  mist  and  night,  off  shore  in  the 
punt,  labouring  at  the  splitting-table,  at  work 
on  the  flake,  everywhere,  wondering  all  the 
time  where  souls  took  their  flight. 

"  'Twere  wonderin'  whether  hell  do   be 
underground   or  not,"  said  Elisha,   "that 


SOME  OUTPORT  FOLK         113 

turned  un  over  at  last.  Sure,  sir,"  with  a 
sigh,  "  'twere  doubt,  you  sees.  'Tis  faith  us 
must  have." 

Elisha  stroked  the  nearest  dog  with  a  gen- 
tle hand — a  mighty  hand,  toil-worn  and  mis- 
shapen, like  the  man  himself. 

"Do  your  besettin'  sin  get  the  best  o' 
you,  sir  ?  "  he  said,  looking  up.  It  may  be 
that  he  craved  to  hear  a  confession  of  fail- 
ure that  he  might  afterwards  sustain  him- 
self with  the  thought  that  no  man  is  invul- 
nerable. "Sure,  we've  all  besettin'  sins. 
"When  we  do  be  snatched  from  the  burnin' 
brands,  b'y,  a  little  spark  burns  on,  an'  on, 
an'  on;  an'  he  do  be  wonderful  hard  t' 
douse  out.  'Tis  like  the  eye  us  must  pluck 
out  by  command  o'  the  Lard.  With  some 
men  'tis  a  taste  for  baccy.  With  some  'tis 
a  scarcity  o'  salt  in  the  fish.  With  some 
'tis  too  much  water  in  the  lobster  cans. 
With  some  'tis  a  cravin'  for  sweetness. 
With  me  'tis  worse  nor  all.  Sure,  sir,"  he 
went  on,  "  I've  knowed  some  men  so  fond, 
so  wonderful  fond,  o'  baccy  that  um  smoked 


114      DR.  GRENFELUS  PARISH 

the  shoes  off  their  children's  feet.  'Tis 
their  besettin'  sin,  sir — 'tis  their  besettin' 
sin.  But  'tis  not  baccy  that  worries  me. 
The  taste  fell  away  when  I  were  took  from 
sin.  'Tis  not  that.  'Tis  worse.  Sure,  with 
me,  sir,"  he  said,  brushing  his  hand  over 
his  forehead  in  a  weary,  despairing  way, 
"'tis  laughin*.  'Tis  the  sin  of  jokin'  that 
puts  my  soul  in  danger  o'  bein'  hove  over- 
board into  the  burnin'  lake.  I  were  a  won- 
derful joker  when  I  were  a  sinful  man. 
'Twas  all  I  lived  for — not  t'  praise  God  an* 
prepare  my  soul  for  death.  When  I  gets 
up  in  the  marnin',  now,  sir,  I  feels  like 
jokin'  like  what  I  used  t'  do,  particular  if  it 
do  be  a  fine  day.  Ah,  sir,"  with  a  long 
sigh,  "  'tis  a  great  temptation,  I  tells  you — : 
'tis  a  wonderful  temptation.  But  'tis  not 
set  down  in  the  Book  that  Jesus  Christ 
smiled  an'  laughed,  an'  with  the  Lard's  help 
I'll  beat  the  devil  yet.  I'll  beat  un,"  he 
cried,  as  if  inspired  to  some  supreme  strug- 
gle. "  I'll  beat  un,"  he  repeated,  clinching 
his  great  hands.    "  I  will  1 " 


SOME  OUTPORT  FOLK        115 

Elisha  bade  us  good-night  with  a  solemn 
face.  A  little  smile — a  poor,  frightened 
little  smile  of  tender  feeling  for  us — flick- 
ered in  his  eyes  for  the  space  of  a  breath. 
But  he  snuffed  it  out  relentlessly,  expressed 
his  triumph  with  a  flash  of  his  eye,  and 
went  away  to  bed.  In  the  morning,  when 
the  sun  called  us  up,  he  had  come  back 
from  the  early  morning's  fishing,  and  was 
singing  a  most  doleful  hymn  of  death  and 
judgment  over  the  splitting-table  in  the 
stage.  The  sunlight  was  streaming  into 
the  room,  and  the  motes  were  all  dancing 
merrily  in  the  beam.  The  breeze  was  rust- 
ling the  leaves  of  a  sickly  bush  under  the 
window — coaxing  them  to  hopeful  whis- 
perings. I  fancied  that  the  sea  was  all  blue 
and  rippling,  and  that  the  birds  were  flitting 
through  the  sunlight,  chirping  their  sym- 
pathy with  the  smiling  day.  But  Elisha, 
his  brave  heart  steeled  against  the  whole 
earth's  frivolous  mood,  continued  heroically 
to  pour  forth  his  dismal  song. 


116      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

Twilight  was  filling  the  kitchen  with 
strange  shadows.  "We  had  disposed  of 
Aunt  Ruth's  watered  fish  and  soaked  hard- 
bread  with  hunger  for  a  relish.  Uncle 
Simon's  glance  was  mournfully  intent  upon 
the  bare  platter. 

"But,"  said  Aunt  Ruth,  with  obstinate 
emphasis,  "  I  knows  they  be.  'Tis  not  what 
we  hears  we  believe,  sir.  No,  'tis  not  what 
we  hears.  'Tis  what  we  sees.  An'  I've 
seed  un." 

"  'Tis  true,  sir,"  said  Uncle  Simon,  look- 
ing up.     "  They  be  nar  a  doubt  about  it." 

"But  where,"  said  I,  "did  she  get  her 
looking-glass  ?  " 

"  They  be  many  a  trader  wrecked  on  this 
coast,  sir,"  said  Uncle  Simon. 

"'Twere  not  a  mermaid  I  seed,"  said 
Aunt  Ruth.     "  'Twere  a  laerman" 

"Sure,"  said  Uncle  Simon,  mysteriously, 
"they  do  be  in  the  sea  the  shape  o'  all 
that's  on  the  land — shape  for  shape,  sir. 
They  be  sea-horses  an'  sea-cows  an'  sea-dogs. 
Why  not  the  shape  o'  humans  ?  " 


SOME  OUTPORT  FOLK         117 

"  "Well,"  said  Aunt  Ruth,  "  'twas  when  I 
were  a  little  maid.  An'  'twas  in  a  gale  o' 
wind.  I  goes  down  t'  Billy  Cove  t'  watch 
me  father  bring  the  punt  in,  an'  I  couldn't 
see  un  anywhere.  So  I  thought  he  were 
drownded.  'Twere  handy  t'  dark  when  I 
seed  the  merman  rise  from  the  water.  He 
were  big  an'  black — so  black  as  the  stove. 
I  could  see  the  eyes  of  un  so  plain  as  I  can 
see  yours.  He  were  not  good  lookin' — no, 
I'll  say  that  much — he  were  not  good 
lookin'.  He  waved  his  arms,  an'  beckoned 
an'  beckoned  an'  beckoned.  But,  sure,  sir, 
I  wouldn't  go,  for  I  were  feared.  "Tis 
the  soul  o'  me  father,'  thinks  I.  'Sure, 
the  sea's  cotched  un.'  So  I  runs  home  an' 
tells  me  mother;  an'  she  says  'twere  a 
merman.  I  hnows  they  be  mermans  an' 
mermaids,  'cause  I'se  seed  un.  'Tis  what 
we  sees  we  believes." 

"  'Tis  said,"  said  Uncle  Simon,  "  that  if 
you  finds  un  on  the  rocks  an'  puts  un  in  the 
water  they  gives  you  three  wishes ;  an'  all 
you  has  t'  do  is  wish,  an' " 


118      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

"  'Tis  said,"  said  Aunt  Ruth,  with  a  pro- 
digious frown  across  the  table,  "  that  the 
mermaids  trick  the  fishermen  t'  the  edge  o' 
the  sea  an'  steals  un  away.  Uncle  Simon 
Ride,"  she  went  on,  severely,  "if  ever 
you " 

Uncle  Simon  looked  sheepish.  "Sure, 
woman,"  said  he,  the  evidences  of  guilt 
plain  on  his  face,  "  they  be  no  danger  t'  me. 
'Twould  take  a  clever  mermaid  t' " 

"Uncle  Simon  Ride,"  said  Aunt  Ruth, 
"  nar  another  word.  An'  if  you  don't  put 
my  spinnin'  wheel  t'  rights  this  night  I'll 
give  you  your  tea  in  a  mug  *  t'-morrow — an' 
mind  that,  sir,  mind  that  I " 

After  we  had  left  the  table  Uncle  Simon 
took  me  aside.  "  She  do  be  a  wonderful 
woman,"  said  he,  meaning  Aunt  Ruth. 
Then,  earnestly,  "  She've  no  cause  t'  be  jeal- 
ous o'  the  mermaids.    N^o,  sir — sure,  no." 

It  is  difficult  to  convey  an  adequate  con- 
ception of  the  barrenness  of  this  coast.    If 

^  A  scolding. 


SOME  OUTPORT  FOLK        119 

you  were  to  ask  a  fisherman  of  some  remote 
outport  what  his  Hour  was  made  of  he  would 
stare  at  you  and  be  mute.  "  Wheat "  would 
be  a  new,  meaningless  word  to  many  a  man 
of  those  places.  It  may  be  that  the  words 
of  the  Old  Skipper  of  Black  Harbour  will 
help  the  reader  to  an  understanding  of  the 
high  value  set  upon  the  soil  and  all  it  pro- 
duces. 

"  Come  with  me,"  said  the  Old  Skipper, 
"  an'  I'll  show  you  so  fine  a  garden  as  ever 
you  seed." 

The  garden  was  on  an  island  two  miles 
off  the  mainland.  Like  many  another  patch 
of  ground  it  had  to  be  cultivated  from  a 
distant  place.  It  was  an  acre,  or  there- 
abouts, which  had  been  "  won  from  the 
wilderness  "  by  the  labour  of  several  gener- 
ations ;  and  it  was  owned  by  eleven  fam- 
ilies. This  was  not  a  garden  made  by  gath- 
ering soil  and  dumping  it  in  a  hollow,  as 
most  gardens  are ;  it  was  a  real  "meadow." 

"Look  at  them  potatoes,  sir,"  said  the 
skipper.    He   radiated  pride  in  the  soil's 


120      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

achievement  as  he  waited  for  my  outburst 
of  congratulation. 

The  potatoes,  owing  to  painstaking  fer 
tilization  with  small  fish,  had  attained  ad- 
mirable size — in  tops.     But  the  hay  ! 

"  'Tis  fine  grass,"  said  the  skipper.  "  Fine 
as  ever  you  seed !  " 

It  was  thin,  and  nearer  gray  than  yellow ; 
and  every  stalk  was  weak  in  the  knees.  I 
do  it  more  than  justice  when  I  write  that  it 
rose  above  my  shoe  tops. 

"'Tis  sizable  hay,"  said  the  skipper. 
"  'Tis  time  I  had  un  cut." 

On  the  way  back  the  skipper  caught  sight 
of  a  skiff-load  of  hay,  which  old  John  Burns 
was  sculling  from  Duck  Island.  He  was 
careful  to  point  it  out  as  good  evidence  of 
the  fertility  of  that  part  of  the  world.  By 
and  by  we  came  to  a  whisp  of  hay  which 
had  fallen  from  the  skiff.  It  was  a  mere 
handful  floating  on  the  quiet  water. 

"  The  wastefulness  of  that  dunderhead  I  " 
exclaimed  the  skipper. 


SOME  OUTPORT  FOIiK        121 

He  took  the  boat  towards  the  whisp  of 
hay,  pufB.ng  his  wrath  all  the  while. 

"  Pass  the  gaff,  b'y,"  he  said. 

With  the  utmost  care  he  hooked  the  whisp 
of  hay — to  the  last  straw — and  drew  it  over 
the  side. 

"  'Tis  a  sin,"  said  he,  "  t'  waste  good  hay 
like  that." 

Broad  fields,  hay  and  wheat  and  corn,  all 
yellow,  waving  to  the  breeze — the  sun  flood- 
ing all — were  far,  far  beyond  this  man's  im- 
agination. He  did  not  know  that  in  other 
lands  the  earth  yields  generously  to  the 
men  who  sow  seed.  How  little  did  the 
harvest  mean  to  him !  The  world  is  a  world 
of  rock  and  sea — of  sea  and  naked  rock. 
Soil  is  gathered  in  buckets.  Gardens  are- 
made  by  hand.  The  return  is  precious  in 
the  sight  of  men. 

Uncle  Zeb  Gale — Daddy  Gale,  who  had 
long  ago  lost  count  of  his  grandchildren, 
they  were  so  many — OP  Zeb  tottered  up 


122      DE.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH   * 

from,  the  sea,  gasping  and  coughing,  but 
broadly  smiling  in  the  intervals.  He  had 
a  great  cod  in  one  hand,  and  his  old  cloth 
cap  was  in  the  other.  His  head  was  bald, 
and  his  snowy  beard  covered  his  chest. 
Toil  and  the  weight  of  years  had  bowed 
his  back,  spun  a  film  over  his  eyes  and 
cracked  his  voice.  But  neither  toil  nor 
age  nor  hunger  nor  cold  had  broken  his 
cheery  interest  in  all  the  things  of  life. 
01'  Zeb  smiled  in  a  sweetly  winning  way. 
He  stopped  to  pass  a  word  with  the 
stranger,  who  was  far  away  from  home, 
and  therefore,  no  doubt,  needed  a  hearten- 
ing word  or  two. 

"  Fine  even,  zur,"  said  he. 

"'Tis  that,  Uncle  Zeb.  How  have  the 
fish  been  to-day  ?  " 

"Oh,  they  be  a  scattered  fish  off  the 
Mull,  zur.  But  'tis  only  a  scattered  one. 
They  don't  run  in,  zur,  like  what  they 
used  to  when  I  were  young,  sure." 

"  How  many  years  ago,  sir  ?  " 

"  'Tis  many  year,  zur,"  said  Uncle  Zeb, 


SOME  OUTPORT  FOLK        123 

smiling  indulgence  with  my  youth.  "  They 
was  fish  a-plenty  when — when — when  I 
were  young.  'Tis  not  what  it  used  t'  be 
— no,  no,  zur  ;  not  at  all.  Sure,  zur,  I  been 
goin'  t'  the  grounds  off  the  Mull  since  I 
were  seven  years  old.  Since  I  were  seven  ! 
I  be  eighty-three  now,  zur.  Seventy-six 
year,  zur,  I  has  fished  out  o'  this  here 
harbour." 

Uncle  Zeb  stopped  to  wheeze  a  bit.  He 
was  out  of  breath  with  this  long  speech. 
And  when  he  had  wheezed  a  bit,  a  spasm 
of  hard  coughing  took  him.  He  was  on 
the  verge  of  the  last  stage  of  consump- 
tion, was  Uncle  Zeb. 

"  'Tis  a  fine  harbour  t'  fish  from,  zur,"  he 
gasped.  "They  be  none  better.  Least- 
ways, so  they  tells  me — them  that's  cruised 
about  a  deal.  Sure,  I've  never  seen  another. 
'Tis  t'  Conch '  I've  wanted  t'  go  since  I  were 
a  young  feller.  I'll  see  un  yet,  zur — ^sure, 
an'  I  will." 

"  You  are  eighty-three  ?  "  said  I. 

*  Some  miles  distant. 


124      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PAEISH 

"  I  be  the  oldest  man  t'  the  harbour,  zur. 
I  marries  the  maids  an'  the  young  fellers 
when  they's  no  parson  about." 

"  You  have  fished  out  of  this  harbour  for 
seventy-six  years  ?  "  said  I,  in  vain  trying  to 
comprehend  the  deprivation  and  dull  toil  of 
that  long  life — trying  to  account  for  the 
childlike  smile  which  had  continued  to  the 
end  of  it. 

"  Ay,  zur,"  said  Uncle  Zeb.  "  But,  sure, 
they  be  plenty  o'  time  t'  see  Conch  yet.  Me 
father  were  ninety  when  he  died.  I  be  only 
eighty-three." 

Uncle  Zeb  tottered  up  the  hill.  Soon  the 
dusk  swallowed  his  old  hulk.  I  never  saw 
him  again. 

"We  were  seated  on  the  Head,  high  above 
the  sea,  watching  the  fleet  of  punts  come 
from  the  Mad  Mull  grounds  and  from  the 
nets  along  shore,  for  it  was  evening.  Jack 
had  told  me  much  of  the  lore  of  lobster- 
catching  and  squid-jigging.  Of  winds  and 
tides  and  long  breakers  he  had  given  me 


SOME  OUTPORT  FOLK        125 

solemn  warnings — and  especially  of  that 
little  valley  down  which  the  gusts  came, 
no  man  knew  from  where.  He  had  im- 
parted certain  secrets  concerning  the 
whereabouts  of  gulls'  nests  and  juniper- 
berry  patches,  for  I  had  won  his  con- 
fidence. I  had  been  informed  that  Uncle 
Tom  Bull's  piint  was  in  hourly  danger  of 
turning  over  because  her  spread  of  canvas 
was  "scandalous"  great,  that  Bill  Blud- 
gell  kept  the  "surliest  dog  t'  the  har- 
bour," that  the  "goaats  was  wonderful 
hard  t'  find"  in  the  fog,  that  a  brass 
bracelet  would  cure  salt-water  sores  on 
the  wrists,  that — I  cannot  recall  it  all. 
He  had  "mocked"  a  goat,  a  squid,  a 
lamb,  old  George  "Walker  at  prayer,  and 
"  Uncle  "  Ruth  berating  "  Aunt "  Simon  for 
leaving  the  splitting-table  unclean. 

Then  he  sang  this  song,  in  a  thin,  sweet 
treble,  which  was  good  to  hear : 

"  'Way  down  on  Pigeon  Pond  Island, 
"When  daddy  comes  home  from  swiiin',' 

'  Sealing. 


126      DR.  GEENFELL'S  PARISH 

(Maggoty  fish  hung  up  in  the  air, 
Fried  ta  maggoty  butter) ! 
Cakes  and  tea  for  breakfast, 
Pork  and  duff  for  dinner, 
Cakes  and  tea  for  supper, 
When  daddy  comes  home  from  swilin'." 

He  asked  me  riddles,  thence  he  passed  to 
other  questions,  for  he  was  a  boy  who  won- 
dered, and  wondered,  what  laj  beyond  those 
places  which  he  could  see  from  the  highest 
hill.  I  described  a  street  and  a  pavei  ^nt, 
told  him  that  the  earth  was  round,  defined 
a  team  of  horses,  corrected  his  impression 
that  a  church  organ  was  played  with  the 
mouth,  and  denied  the  report  that  the  flakes 
and  stages  of  New  York  were  the  largest  in 
the  world.  The  boys  of  the  outports  do  not 
play  games — there  is  no  time,  and  at  any 
rate,  the  old  West  Country  games  have  not 
come  down  to  this  generation  with  the 
dialect,  so  I  told  him  how  to  play  tag, 
hide-and-go-seek  and  blind  man's  buff,  and 
proved  to  him  that  they  might  be  in- 
teresting, though  I  had  to  admit  that 
they  might  not  be  profitable  in  certain  cases. 


SOME  OUTPORT  FOLK        127 

"  Some  men,"  said  I,  at  last,  "  have  never 
seen  the  sea." 

He  looked  at  me  and  laughed  his  unbelief. 
"  Sure,"  said  he,  "not  a  hundred  haven't  ?  " 

"  Many  more  than  that." 

"  'Tis  hard  t'  believe,  zur,"  he  said.  "  Ter- 
rible hard." 

We  were  silent  while  he  thought  it  over. 

"  What's  the  last  harbour  in  the  world  ?  " 
he  asked. 

I  hesitated. 

"  The  very  last,  zur  I  They  do  say  'tis  St. 
Johns.  But,  sure,  zur,  they  must  be  some- 
thing beyond.  What  do  it  be  ?  "  After  a 
silence,  he  continued,  speaking  wistfuUy, 
"  What's  the  last  harbour  in  all  the  whole 
world,  zur  ?    Doesn't  you  know  ?  " 

It  had  been  a  raw  day — gray  and  gusty, 
with  the  wind  breaking  over  the  island  from 
a  foggy  sea :  a  sullen  day.  All  day  long 
there  had  been  no  rest  from  the  deep  harsh 
growl  of  the  breakers.  We  were  at  tea  in 
Aunt  Amanda's    cottage;    the    table  was 


128      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

spread  with  dried  caplin,  bread  and  butter, 
and  tea,  for  Aunt  Amanda,  the  Scotsman 
who  was  of  the  harbour,  and  me.  The 
harbour  water  was  fretting  under  the  win- 
dows as  the  swift  gusts  whipped  over  it; 
and  beyond  the  narrows,  where  the  sea  was 
tumbling,  the  dusk  was  closing  over  the 
frothy  waves.  Out  there  a  punt  was  reel- 
ing in  from  the  Mad  Mull  fishing  grounds  ; 
its  brown  sail  was  like  a  leaf  driven  by  the 
wind.  I  saw  the  boat  dart  through  the  nar- 
rows to  the  sheltered  water,  and  I  sighed  in 
sympathy  with  the  man  who  was  then  furl- 
ing his  wet  and  fluttering  sail,  for  I,  too, 
had  experienced  the  relief  of  sweeping  from 
that  waste  of  grasping  waves  to  the  sanctu- 
ary of  the  harbour. 

"  Do  you  think  of  the  sea  as  a  friend  ?  " 
I  asked  Aunt  Amanda. 

She  was  a  gray,  stern  woman,  over  whose 
face,  however,  a  tender  smile  was  used  to 
flitting,  the  light  lingered  last  in  her  faded 
eyes — the  daughter,  wife,  and  mother  of 


SOME  OUTPORT  FOLK         129 

punt  fishermen.  So  she  had  dealt  hand  to 
hand  with  the  sea  since  that  night,  long 
ago,  when,  as  a  wee  maid,  she  first  could 
reach  the  splitting-table  by  standing  on  a 
bucket.  As  a  child  she  had  tripped  up  the 
path  to  Lookout  Head,  to  watch  her  father 
beat  in  from  the  grounds ;  as  a  maiden,  she 
had  courted  when  the  moonlight  was  falling 
upon  the  ripples  of  Lower  Harbour,  and  the 
punt  was  heaving  to  the  spent  swell  of  the 
open ;  as  a  woman  she  had  kept  watch  on 
the  moods  of  the  sea,  which  had  possessed 
itself  of  her  hours  of  toil  and  leisure.  In 
the  end — may  the  day  be  long  in  coming — 
she  will  be  taken  to  the  little  graveyard 
under  the  Lookout  in  a  skiff.  Now,  at  my 
suggestion,  she  dropped  her  eyes  to  her 
apron,  which  she  smoothed  in  an  absent 
way.  She  seemed  to  search  her  life — all  the 
terror,  toil,  and  glory  of  it — ^for  the  answer. 
She  was  not  of  a  kind  to  make  light  replies, 
and  I  knew  that  the  word  to  come  would  be 
of  vast  significance. 


130      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

"  It  do  seem  to  me,"  she  said,  turning  her 
eyes  to  the  darkening  water,  "  that  the  say 
is  hungry  for  the  lives  o'  men." 

"  Tut,  woman ! "  cried  the  old  Scotsman, 
his  eyes  all  a-sparkle.  "  'Tis  a  libel  on  the 
sea.  "Why  wuU  ye  speak  such  trash  to  a 
stranger  ?  Have  ye  never  heard,  sir,  what 
the  poet  says  ?  " 

"  Well,"  I  began  to  stammer. 

"Aye,  man,"  said  he,  "they  all  babble 
about  it.    But  have  ye  never  read, 

"  '  O,  who  can  tell,  save  he  whose  heart  hath  tried, 
And  danced  in  triumph  o'er  the  waters  wide, 
The  exulting  sense,  the  pulse's  maddening  play, 
That  thrills  the  wanderer  of  that  trackless  way  ? ' " 

"With  that,  the  sentimental  old  fellow 
struck  an  attitude.  His  head  was  thrown 
back ;  his  eyes  were  flashing ;  his  arm  was 
rigid,  and  pointing  straight  through  the 
window  to  that  patch  of  white,  far  off  in 
the  gathering  dark,  where  the  sea  lay  rag- 
ing. It  ever  took  a  poet  to  carry  that  old 
Scotsman  off  his  feet — to  sweep  him  to  some 
high,  cloudy  place,  where  the  things  of  life 


SOME  OUTPORT  FOLK         131 

rearranged  and  decked  themselves  out  to 
please  his  fancy.  I  confess,  too,  that  his 
enthusiasm  rekindled,  for  a  moment,  my 
third-reader  interest  in  "  a  wet  sheet  and  a 
flowing  sea"  and  "a  wind  that  follows 
fast."  We  have  all  loved  well  the  sea  of 
our  fancy. 

"  Grand,  woman  I "  he  exclaimed,  turning 
to  Aunt  Amanda,  and  still  a-tremble. 
"Splendid!" 

Aunt  Amanda  fixed  him  with  her  gray 
eye.  "I  don't  know,"  she  said,  softly. 
"  But  I  know  that  the  say  took  me  father 
from  me  when  I  was  a  wee  maid." 

The  Scotsman  bent  his  head  over  his 
plate,  lower  and  lower  still.  His  fervour 
departed,  and  his  face,  when  he  looked  up, 
was  full  of  sympathy.  Of  a  sudden  my 
ears  hearkened  again  to  the  growling  break- 
ers, and  to  the  wind,  as  it  ran  past,  leaping 
from  sea  to  wilderness ;  and  my  spirit  felt 
the  coming  of  the  dark. 


XI 

WINTER  PRACTICE 

IT  is,  then,  to  the  outporter,  to  the  men 
of  the  fleet  and  to  the  Labrador  live- 
yere  that  Doctor  Grenfell  devotes  him- 
self. The  hospital  at  Indian  Harbour  is  the 
centre  of  the  Labrador  activity ;  the  hos- 
pital at  St.  Anthony  is  designed  to  care  for 
the  needs  of  the  French  shore  folk ;  the  hos- 
pital at  Battle  Harbour — the  first  estab- 
lished, and,  possibly,  the  best  equipped  of 
all — receives  patients  from  all  directions,  but 
especially  from  the  harbours  of  the  Strait 
and  the  Gulf.  In  the  little  hospital-ship, 
Strathcona,  the  doctor  himself  darts  here  and 
there  and  everywhere,  all  summer  long,  re- 
sponding to  calls,  searching  out  the  sick, 
gathering  patients  for  the  various  hospitals. 
She  is  known  to  every  harbour  of  the  coast ; 
and  she  is  often  overcrowded  with  sick  bound 

to  the  hospitals  for  treatment  or  operation. 
132 


WINTER  PRACTICE  133 

Often,  indeed,  in  cases  of  emergency,  operar 
tions  are  performed  aboard,  while  she  tosses 
in  the  rough  seas.  She  is  never  a  moment 
idle  while  the  waters  are  open.  But  in  the 
fall,  when  navigation  closes,  she  must  go  into 
winter  quarters;  and  then  the  sick  and 
starving  are  sought  out  by  dog-team  and 
komatik.  There  is  no  cessation  of  beneficent 
activity;  there  is  merely  a  change  in  the 
manner  of  getting  about.  Summer  journeys 
are  hard  enough,  God  knows !  But  winter 
travel  is  a  matter  of  much  greater  difficulty 
and  hardship.  Not  that  the  difficulty  and 
hardship  seem  ever  to  be  perceived  by  the 
mission-doctor ;  quite  the  contrary :  there  is 
if  anything  greater  delight  to  be  found  in  a 
wild,  swift  race  over  rotten  or  heaving  ice, 
or  in  a  night  in  the  driving  snow,  than  in  run- 
ning the  Strathcona  through  a  nor'east  gale. 
The  Indian  Harbour  hospital  is  closed  in  the 
fall ;  so  intense  is  the  cold,  so  exposed  the 
situation,  so  scarce  the  wood,  so  few  the 
liveyeres,  that  it  has  been  found  unprofitable 
to  keep  it  open.    There  is  another  way  of 


134      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

meeting  the  needs  of  the  situation ;  and  that 
is  by  despatching  the  Battle  Harbour  doctor 
northward  in  midwinter.  The  folk  know 
that  he  is  bound  towards  them — ^know  the 
points  of  call — can  determine  within  a 
month  the  time  of  his  arrival.  So  they 
bring  the  sick  to  these  places — and  patiently 
wait.  This  is  a  hard  journey — made  alone 
with  the  dogs.  Many  a  night  the  doctor 
must  get  into  his  sleeping  bag  and  make 
himself  as  comfortable  as  possible  in  the 
snow,  snuggled  close  to  his  dogs,  for  the  sake 
of  the  warmth  of  their  bodies.  Six  hundred 
miles  north  in  the  dead  of  winter,  six  hun- 
dred miles  back  again ;  it  takes  a  man  of 
unchangeable  devotion  to  undertake  it  I 

The  Labrador  dogs — pure  and  half-breed 
"  huskies,"  with  so  much  of  the  wolf  yet  in 
them  that  they  never  bark — are  for  the  most 
part  used  by  the  doctor  on  his  journeys. 
There  would  be  no  getting  anywhere  with- 
out them ;  and  it  must  be  said  that  they  are 
magnificent    animals,    capable    of    heroic 


WINTER  PRACTICE  135 

deeds.  Every  prosperous  householder  has 
at  least  six  or  eight  full-grown  sled-dogs  and 
more  puppies  than  he  can  keep  track  of.  In 
summer  they  lie  everywhere  under  foot  by 
diiy,  and  by  night  howl  in  a  demoniacal 
fashion  far  and  near;  but  they  fish  for 
themselves  in  shallow  water,  and  are  fat, 
and  may  safely  be  stepped  over.  In  winter 
they  are  lean,  desperately  hungry,  savage, 
and  treacherous — in  particular,  a  menace  to 
the  lives  of  children,  whom  they  have  been 
known  to  devour.  There  was  once  a  father, 
just  returned  from  a  day's  hunt  on  the  ice, 
who  sent  his  son  to  fetch  a  seal  from  the 
waterside ;  the  man  had  forgotten  for  the 
moment  that  the  dogs  were  roaming  the 
night  and  very  hungry — and  so  he  lost  both 
his  seal  and  his  son.  The  four-year-old  son 
of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company's  agent  at 
Cartwright  chanced  last  winter  to  fall  down 
in  the  snow.  He  was  at  once  set  upon  by 
the  pack;  and  when  he  was  rescued  (his 
mother  told  me  the  story)  he  had  forty-two 
ugly  wounds  on  his  little  body.    For  many 


136      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

nights  afterwards  the  dogs  howled  under  the 
window  where  he  lay  moaning.  Eventually 
those  concerned  in  the  attack  were  hanged 
by  the  neck,  which  is  the  custom  in  such 
cases. 

Once,  when  Dr.  Grenfell  was  wintering 
at  St.  Anthony,  on  the  French  shore,  there 
came  in  great  haste  from  Conch,  a  point 
sixty  miles  distant,  a  komatik  with  an 
urgent  summons  to  the  bedside  of  a  man 
who  lay  dying  of  hemorrhage.  And  while 
the  doctor  was  preparing  for  this  journey, 
a  second  komatik,  despatched  from  another 
place,  arrived  with  a  similar  message. 

"  Come  at  once,"  it  was.  "  My  little  boy 
has  broken  his  thigh." 

The  doctor  chose  first  to  visit  the  lad. 
At  ten  o'clock  that  night  he  was  at  the  bed- 
side. It  had  been  a  dark  night — black  dark : 
with  the  road  precipitous,  the  dogs  uncon- 
trollable, the  physician  in  great  haste.  The 
doctor  thought,  many  a  time,  that  there 
"Would  be  "  more  than  one  broken  limb  "  by 


WINTER  PRACTICE  137 

the  time  of  his  arrival.  But  there  was  no 
misadventure;  and  he  found  the  lad  Ij^ng 
on  a  settle,  in  great  pain,  vrondering  why 
he  must  suffer  so. 

"  Every  minute  or  two,  "  says  the  doctor, 
"  there  would  be  a  jerk,  a  flash  of  pain,  and 
a  cry  to  his  father,  who  was  holding  him  all 
the  time." 

The  doctor  was  glad  "  to  get  the  chloro- 
form mask  over  the  boy's  face " — he  is  a 
sympathetic  man,  the  doctor ;  glad,  always, 
to  ease  pain.  And  at  one  o'clock  in  the 
morning  the  broken  bone  was  set  and  the 
doctor  had  had  a  cup  of  tea ;  whereupon,  he 
retired  to  a  bed  on  the  floor  and  a  few 
hours'  "  watch  below."  At  daylight,  when 
he  was  up  and  about  to  depart,  the  little 
patient  had  awakened  and  was  merrily  call- 
ing to  the  doctor's  little  retriever. 

"  He  was  as  merry  as  a  cricket,"  says  the 
doctor,  "  when  I  bade  him  good-bye." 

About  twelve  hours  on  the  way  to  Conch, 
where  the   man  lay  dying  of  hemorrhage 


138      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

— a  two  days'  journey — the  doctor  fell  in 
with  a  dog-train  bearing  the  mail.  And 
the  mail-man  had  a  letter — a  hasty  sum- 
mons to  a  man  in  great  pain  some  sixty 
miles  in  another  direction.  It  was  impossi- 
ble to  respond.  "  That  call,"  says  the  doctor, 
sadly, "  owing  to  sheer  impossibility,  was  not 
answered."  It  was  haste  away  to  Conch, 
over  the  ice  and  snow — for  the  most  of 
the  time  on  the  ice  of  the  sea — in  order  that 
the  man  who  lay  dying  there  might  be  suc- 
coured. But  there  was  another  interruption. 
When  the  dog-train  reached  the  coast,  there 
was  a  man  waiting  to  intercept  it :  the  news 
of  the  doctor's  probable  coming  had  spread. 

"  I've  a  fresh  team  o'  dogs,"  sir,  said  he, 
"  t'  take  you  t'  the  island.  There's  a  man 
there,  an'  he's  wonderful  sick." 

Would  the  doctor  go?  Yes — he  would 
go !  But  he  had  no  sooner  reached  that 
point  of  the  mainland  whence  he  was  bound 
across  a  fine  stretch  of  ice  to  the  island 
than  he  was  again  intercepted.  It  was  a 
young  man,  this  time,  whose  mother  lay 


WINTER  PRACTICE  139 

ill,  with  no  other  Protestant  family  living 
within  fifty  miles.  "Would  the  doctor  help 
her?  Yes — the  doctor  would;  and  did. 
And  when  he  was  about  to  be  on  his  way 
again 

"  Could  you  bear  word,"  said  the  woman, 
"f  Mister  Elliot  t'  come  bury  my  boy? 
He  said  he'd  come,  sir ;  but  now  my  little 
lad  has  been  lying  dead,  here,  since  Janu- 
ary." 

It  was  then  early  in  March.  Mr,  Elliot 
was  a  Protestant  fisherman  who  was  accus- 
tomed to  bury  the  Protestant  dead  of  that 
district.  Yes — the  doctor  would  bear  word 
to  him.  Having  promised  this,  he  set  out 
to  visit  the  sick  man  on  the  island;  for 
whom,  also,  he  did  what  he  could. 

Off  again  towards  Conch — now  with 
fresh  teams,  which  had  been  provided  by 
the  friends  of  the  man  who  lay  there  dying. 
And  by  the  way  a  man  brought  his  little 
son  for  examination  and  treatment — "  a  lad 
of  three  years,"  says  the  doctor ;  "  a  bright, 


140      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

healthy,  embryo  fisherman,  light-haired  and 
blue-eyed,  a  veritable  celt." 

"And  what's  the  matter  with  him?" 
was  the  physician's  question. 

"  He've  a  club  foot,  sir,"  was  the  answer. 

And  so  it  turned  out :  the  lad  had  a  club 
foot.  He  was  fond  of  telling  his  mother 
that  he  had  a  right  foot  and  a  wrong  one. 
"The  wrong  one,  mama,"  said  he,  "is  no 
good."  He  was  to  be  a  cripple  for  life^ 
utterly  incapacitated :  the  fishing  does  not 
admit  of  club  feet.  But  the  doctor  made 
arrangements  for  the  child's  transportation 
to  the  St.  Anthony  hospital,  where  he  could, 
without  doubt  be  cured ;  and  then  hurried 
on. 

The  way  now  led  through  a  district  des- 
perately impoverished — as  much  by  igno- 
rance and  indolence  as  by  anything  else. 
At  one  settlement  of  tilts  there  were  forty 
souls,  "  without  a  scrap  of  food  or  money," 
who  depended  upon  their  neighbours — and 
the  opening  of  navigation  was  still  three 


WINTER  PRACTICE  141 

months  distant !  In  one  tilt  there  lay  what 
seemed  to  be  a  bundle  of  rags. 

"  And  who  is  this  ?  "  the  doctor  asked. 

It  was  a  child.  "  The  fair  hair  of  a  blue- 
eyed  boy  of  about  ten  years  disclosed 
itself,"  says  the  doctor.  "Stooping  over 
him  I  attempted  to  turn  his  face  towards 
me.  It  was  drawn  with  pain,  and  a  moan 
escaped  the  poor  little  fellow's  lips.  He 
had  disease  of  the  spine,  with  open  sores  in 
three  places.  He  was  stark  naked,  and  he 
was  starved  to  a  skeleton.  He  gave  me  a 
bright  smile  before  I  left,  but  I  confess  to  a 
shudder  of  horror  at  the  thought  that  his 
lot  might  have  been  mine.  Of  course  the 
'  fear  of  pauperizing '  had  to  disappear  be- 
fore the  claims  of  humanity.  Yet,  there,  in 
the  depth  of  winter,"  the  doctor  asks,  with 
infinite  compassion,  "  would  not  a  lethal 
draught  be  the  kindest  friend  of  that  little 
one  of  Him  that  loved  the  children  ?  " 

For  five  days  the  doctor  laboured  in 
Conch,  healing  many  of  the  folk,  helping 


142      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

more;  and  at  the  end  of  that  period  the 
man  who  has  suffered  the  hemorrhage  was 
so  far  restored  that  with  new  dogs  the 
doctor  set  out  for  Canada  Bay,  still  travel- 
ling southward.  There,  as  he  says,  "  we 
had  many  interesting  cases."  One  of  these 
involved  an  operation :  that  of  "  opening  a 
knee-joint  and  removing  a  loose  body,"  with 
the  result  that  a  fisherman  who  had  long 
been  crippled  was  made  quite  well  again. 
Then  there  came  a  second  call  from  Conch. 
Seventeen  men  had  come  for  the  physician, 
willing  to  haul  the  komatik  themselves,  if 
no  dogs  were  to  be  had.  To  this  call  the 
doctor  immediately  responded ;  and  having 
treated  patients  at  Conch  and  by  the  way, 
he  set  out  upon  the  return  journey  to  St. 
Anthony,  fearing  that  his  absence  had  al- 
ready been  unduly  prolonged.  And  he  had 
not  gone  far  on  the  way  before  he  fell  in 
with  another  komatik,  provided  with  a  box, 
in  which  lay  an  old  woman  bound  to  St. 
Anthony  hospital,  in  the  care  of  her  sons, 
to  have  her  foot  amputated. 


WINTER  PEACTICE  143 

Crossing  Hare  Bay,  the  doctor  had  a 
slight  mishap — rather  amusing,  too,  he 
thinks. 

"  One  of  my  dogs  fell  through  the  ice," 
says  he.  "  There  was  a  biting  nor' west 
wind  blowing,  and  the  temperature  was 
ten  degrees  below  zero.  "When  we  were 
one  mile  from  the  land,  I  got  off  to  run 
and  try  the  ice.  It  suddenly  gave  way, 
and  in  I  fell.  It  did  not  take  me  long  to 
get  out,  for  I  have  had  some  little  ex- 
perience, and  the  best  advice  sounds  odd: 
it  is  'keep  cool.'  But  the  nearest  house 
being  at  least  ten  miles,  it  meant,  then, 
almost  one's  life  to  have  no  dry  clothing. 
Fortunately,  I  had.  The  driver  at  once 
galloped  the  dogs  back  to  the  woods  we 
had  left,  and  I  had  as  hard  a  mile's  run- 
ning as  ever  I  had ;  for  my  clothing  was 
growing  to  resemble  the  armour  of  an  an- 
cient knight  more  and  more,  every  yard, 
and  though  in  my  youth  I  was  accustomed 
to  break  the  ice  to  bathe  if  necessary,  I 
never  tried  running  a  race  in  a  coat  of 


144      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

mail.  By  the  time  I  arrived  at  the  trees 
and  got  out  of  the  wind,  my  driver  had  a 
rubber  poncho  spread  on  the  snow  under 
a  snug  spruce  thicket;  and  I  was  soon  as 
dry  and  a  great  deal  warmer  than  before." 
At  St.  Anthony,  the  woman's  foot  was 
amputated;  and  in  two  days  the  patient 
was  talking  of  "  getting  up."  Meantime,  a 
komatik  had  arrived  in  haste  from  a  point 
on  the  northwest  coast — a  settlement  one 
hundred  and  twenty  miles  distant.  The 
doctor  was  needed  there — and  the  doctor 
went  I 

This  brief  and  inadequate  description  of 
a  winter's  journey  may  not  serve  to  indicate 
the  hardship  of  the  life  the  doctor  leads :  he 
has  small  regard  for  that ;  but  it  may  faintly 
apprise  the  reader  of  the  character  of  the 
work  done,  and  of  the  will  with  which  the 
doctor  does  it.  One  brief  journey !  The 
visitation  of  but  sixty  miles  of  coast !  Add 
to  this  the  numerous  journeys  of  that  winter, 
the  various  summer  voyages  of  the  Si/rath- 


THE    DOCTOR    ON    A    WINTER'S   JOURNEY 


WINTER  PRACTICE  145 

cona ;  conceive  that  the  folk  of  two  thou- 
sand miles  are  visited  every  year,  often 
twice  a  year:  then  multiply  by  ten — for 
the  mission  has  been  in  efficient  existence 
for  ten  years — and  the  reader  may  reach 
some  faint  conception  of  the  sum  of  good 
wrought  by  this  man.  But  without  know- 
ing the  desolate  land — without  observing 
the  emaciated  bodies  of  the  children — 
without  hearing  the  cries  of  distress — it  is 
impossible  adequately  to  realize  the  bless- 
ing his  devotion  has  brought  to  the  coast. 


XII 
THE  CHAMPION 

THE  Deep-sea  Mission  is  not  con- 
cerned chiefly  with  the  souls  of  the 
folk,  nor  yet  exclusively  with  their 
bodies :  it  endeavours  to  provide  them  with 
religious  instruction,  to  heal  their  ailments ; 
but  it  is  quite  as  much  interested,  appar- 
ently, in  improving  their  material  condition. 
To  the  starving  it  gives  food,  to  the  naked 
clothing ;  but  it  must  not  be  supposed  that 
charity  is  indiscriminately  distributed. 
That  is  not  the  case.  Far  from  it.  When 
a  man  can  cut  wood  for  the  steamer  or  hos- 
pitals in  return  for  the  food  he  is  given,  for 
example,  he  is  required  to  do  so;  but  the 
unhappy  truth  is  that  a  man  can  cut  very 
little  wood  "  on  a  winter's  diet "  exclusively 
of  flour.  "  You  gets  weak  all  of  a  suddent, 
zur,"  one  expressed  it  to  me.  In  his  effort 
to  "  help  the  people  help  themselves  "  the 
146 


THE  CHAMPION  147 

doctor  has  established  cooperative  stores 
and  various  small  industries.  The  result 
has  been  twofold :  the  regeneration  of  sev- 
eral communities,  and  an  outbreak  of  hatred 
and  dishonest  abuse  on  the  part  of  the  trad- 
ers, who  have  too  long  fattened  on  the  iso- 
lation and  miseries  of  the  people.  The  co- 
operative stores,  I  believe,  are  thriving,  and 
the  small  industries  promise  well.  Thus  the 
mission  is  at  once  the  hope  and  comfort  of 
the  coast.  The  man  on  the  Strathcona  is 
the  only  man,  in  all  the  long  history  of  that 
wretched  land,  to  offer  a  helping  hand  to 
the  whole  people  from  year  to  year  without 
ill  temper  and  without  hope  of  gain. 

'*  But  I  can't  do  everything,"  says  he. 

And  that  is  true.  There  is  much  that  the 
mission-doctor  cannot  do — delicate  opera- 
tions, for  which  the  more  skilled  hand  of  a 
specialist  is  needed.  For  a  time,  one  season, 
an  eminent  surgeon,  of  Boston,  the  first  of 
many,  it  is  hoped,  cruised  on  the  Strathcona 
and  most  generously  operated  at  Battle 
Harbour.     The  mission  gathered  the  pa> 


148      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

tients  to  the  hospital  from  far  and  near  be- 
fore the  surgeon  arrived.  Folk  who  had 
looked  forward  in  dread  to  a  painful  death, 
fast  approaching,  were  of  a  sudden  promised 
life.  There  was  a  man  coming,  they  were 
told,  above  the  skill  of  the  mission  surgeons, 
who  could  surely  cure  them.  The  deed  was 
as  good  as  the  promise :  many  operations 
were  performed ;  all  the  sick  who  came  for 
healing  were  healed ;  the  hope  of  not  one 
was  disappointed.  Folk  who  had  suffered 
years  of  pain  were  restored.  Never  had 
such  a  thing  been  known  on  the  Labrador. 
Men  marvelled.  The  surgeon  was  like  a 
maa  raising  the  dead.  But  there  was  a 
woman  who  is  now,  perhaps,  dead ;  she 
lacked  the  courage.  Day  after  day  for  two 
weeks  she  waited  for  the  Boston  surgeon ; 
but  when  he  came  she  fled  in  terror  of  the 
knife.  Her  ailment  was  mortal  in  that 
land ;  but  she  might  easily  have  been  cured ; 
and  she  fled  home  when  she  knew  that  the 
healer  had  come.  No  doubt  her  children 
now  know  what  it  is  to  want  a  mother. 


THE  CHAMPION  149 

Dr.  Grenfell  will  let  no  man  oppress  his 
people  when  his  arm  is  strong  enough  to 
champion  them.  There  was  once  a  rich  man 
(so  I  was  told  before  I  met  the  doctor) — a 
man  of  influence  and  wide  acquaintance — 
whose  business  was  in  a  remote  harbour  of 
Newfoundland.  He  did  a  great  wrong; 
and  when  the  news  of  it  came  to  the  ears  of 
the  mission-doctor,  the  anchor  of  the  Strath- 
cona  came  up  in  a  hurry,  and  off  she  steamed 
to  that  place. 

"  Now,"  said  the  doctor  to  this  man,  "  you 
must  make  what  amends  you  can,  and  you 
must  confess  your  sin." 

The  man  laughed  aloud.  It  seemed  to 
him,  no  doubt,  a  joke  that  the  mission-doc- 
tor should  interfere  in  the  affairs  of  one  so 
rich  who  knew  the  politicians  at  St.  Johns. 
But  the  mission-doctor  was  also  a  magis- 
trate. 

"  I  say,"  said  he,  deliberately,  "  that  you 
must  pay  one  thousand  dollars  and  confess 
your  sin." 

The  man  cursed  the  doctor  with  great 


160      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

laughter,  and  dared  him  to  do  his  worst. 
The  joke  still  had  point. 

"I  warn  you,"  said  the  doctor,  "that  I 
will  arrest  you  if  you  do  not  do  precisely  as 
I  say." 

The  man  pointed  out  to  the  doctor  that 
his  magisterial  district  lay  elsewhere,  and 
again  defied  him. 

"Yery  true,"  said  the  doctor;  "but  I 
warn  you  that  I  have  a  crew  quite  capable 
of  taking  you  into  it." 

The  joke  was  losing  its  point.  But  the 
man  blustered  that  he,  too,  had  a  crew. 

"  You  must  make  sure,"  said  the  doctor, 
"  that  they  love  you  well  enough  to  fight 
for  you.  On  Sunday  evening,"  he  contin- 
ued, "  you  will  appear  at  the  church  at  seven 
o'clock  and  confess  your  sin  before  the  con- 
gregation ;  and  next  week  you  will  pay  the 
money  as  I  have  said." 

"I'll  see  you  in  h — 11  first!"  replied  the 
man,  defiantly. 

At  the  morning  service  the  doctor  an- 


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THE  CHAMPION  151 

nounced  that  a  sinful  man  would  confess  his 
sin  before  them  all  that  night.  There  was 
great  excitement.  Other  men  might  be  pre- 
vailed upon  to  make  so  humiliating  a  con- 
fession, the  folk  said,  but  not  this  one — not 
tij  is  rich  man,  whom  they  hated  and  feared, 
because  he  had  so  long  pitilessly  oppressed 
them.  So  they  were  not  surprised  when  at 
the  evening  service  the  sinful  man  did  not 
show  his  face. 

"  Will  you  please  to  keep  your  seats,"  said 
the  doctor,  "  while  I  go  fetch  that  man." 

He  found  the  man  in  a  neighbour's  house, 
on  his  knees  in  prayer,  with  his  friends. 
They  were  praying  fervently,  it  is  said  ;  but 
whether  or  not  that  the  heart  of  the  doctor 
might  be  softened  I  do  not  know. 

"Prayer,"  said  the  doctor,  "is  a  good 
thing  in  its  place,  but  it  doesn't  *  go '  here. 
Come  with  me." 

The  man  meekly  went  with  the  doctor ; 
he  was  led  up  the  aisle  of  the  church,  was 
placed  where  all  the  people  could  see  him ; 


162      DR.  GRENFELL'S  PARISH 

and  then  he  was  asked  many  questions,  after 
the  doctor  had  described  the  great  sin  of 
which  he  was  guilty. 

"  Did  you  do  this  thing  ?  " 

"I  did." 

"  You  are  an  evil  man,  of  whom  the  peo- 
ple should  beware  ?  " 

"lam." 

"  You  deserve  the  punishment  of  man  and 
God?" 

«Ido." 

There  was  much  more,  and  at  the  end  of 
it  all  the  doctor  told  the  man  that  the  good 
God  would  forgive  him  if  he  should  ask  in 
true  faith  and  repentance,  but  that  the  peo- 
ple, being  human,  could  not.  For  a  whole 
year,  he  charged  the  people,  they  must  not 
speak  to  that  man ;  but  if  at  the  end  of  that 
time  he  had  shown  an  honest  disposition  to 
mend  his  ways,  they  might  take  him  to 
their  hearts. 

The  end  of  the  story  is  that  the  man  paid 
the  money  and  left  the  place. 


THE  CHAMPION  153 

This  relentless  judge,  on  a  stormy  day  of 
last  July,  carried  many  bundles  ashore  at 
Cartwright,  in  Sandwich  Bay  of  the  Labra- 
dor. The  wife  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Com- 
pany's agent  exclaimed  with  delight  when 
she  opened  them.  They  were  Christmas 
gifts  from  the  children  of  the  "  States  "  to 
the  lads  and  little  maids  of  that  coast.  "With 
almost  all  there  came  a  little  letter  addressed 
to  the  unknown  child  who  was  to  receive 
the  toy ;  they  were  filled  with  loving  words 
— with  good  wishes,  coming  in  childish  sin- 
cerity from  the  warm  little  hearts.  The 
doctor  never  forgets  the  Christmas  gifts. 
He  is  the  St.  Nicholas  of  that  coast.  If  he 
ever  weeps  at  all,  I  should  think  it  would  be 
when  he  hears  that  despite  his  care  some 
child  has  been  neglected.  The  wife  of  the 
agent  stowed  away  the  gifts  against  the 
time  to  come. 

"It  makes  them  'very  happy,"  said  the 
agent's  wife. 

"  Not  long  ago,"  I  chanced  to  say,  "  I  saw 
a  little  girl  with  a  stick  of  wood  for  a  dolly. 


164      DK.  GRENFELL'S  PAEISH 

Are  they  not  afraid  to  play  with  these  pretty 
things  ?  " 

"They  are,"  she  laughed.  "They  use 
them  for  ornaments.  But  that  doesn't  mat- 
ter. It  makes  them  happy  just  to  look  at 
them." 

We  all  laughed. 

"  And  yet,"  she  continued,  "  they  do  play 
with  them,  sometimes,  after  all.  There  is  a 
little  girl  up  the  bay  who  has  hissed  the 
jpavnt  off  her  dolly  !  " 

Thus  and  all  the  time,  in  storm  and  sun- 
shine, summer  and  winter  weather,  Grenfell 
of  the  Deep-sea  Mission  goes  about  doing 
good ;  if  it's  not  in  a  boat,  it's  in  a  dog-sled. 
He  is  what  he  likes  to  call  "a  Christian 
man."  But  he  is  also  a  hero — at  once  the 
bravest  and  the  most  beneficently  useful 
man  I  know.  If  he  regrets  his  isolation,  if 
the  hardship  of  the  life  sometimes  oppresses 
him,  no  man  knows  it.  He  does  much,  but 
there  is  much  more  to  do.  If  the  good  peo- 
ple of  the  world  would  but  give  a  little  more 


THE  CHAMPION  155 

of  what  they  have  so  abundantly — and  if 
they  could  but  know  the  need,  they  would 
surely  do  that — ^joy  might  be  multiplied  on 
that  coast ;  nor  would  any  man  be  wronged 
by  misguided  charity. 

"  What  a  man  does  for  the  love  of  God," 
the  doctor  once  said,  "  he  does  differently." 


By  Wilfred  T.   Grenfell 


The  Harvest  of  the  Sea 

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These  are  real  sea  tales  that 
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told  admirably. " 

—Neiv  York  Sun. 


"The  Enduring  Novelist  of  the  Century" 

RALPH  CONNOR 

Nearly  Two  Million  Sold  of 
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The  Man  Who  In  sHred  RALPH  CONNOR'S  WORKS 

THE    LIFE    OF    JAMES    ROBERTSON 
By  RALPH  CONNOR 

"  Dr.  RobertsDn  was  the  inspirer,  director  and  backer 
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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  AT  LOS  ANGELES 
THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


^r 


MAY  1  i  1937 


jm  8    »e* 


Form  L-9-15m-3,'34 


P 
1122 
T)91 — Dim  can  - 


Dr,  Grenfell^s 


pariah. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A    000  895  707    8 


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im 


:,3CH0Ol. 

OIFOBIOX 


